


Thursdays I'm straight but Fridays I'm in love

by CruelisnotMason



Series: Multi-chap fics for an all-nighter [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Astrophysics Major, Bisexual Hunk (Voltron), Bottom Shiro (Voltron), College AU, Coming Out, Don't copy to another site, Drama, Drinking, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Rating will change, Smut, Trans Lotor (Voltron), nonbinary pidge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-01-11 22:34:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18433478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruelisnotMason/pseuds/CruelisnotMason
Summary: It’s then that Keith notices the new person sitting at the table – and his heart stops in his chest.White hair, dreamy eyes, big build. Three things he notices within a few seconds, next to his increased heart rate.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here I go again on my ownnn~  
> writing this fine piece of fic~~
> 
> I think it's gonna be around 3 chapters?  
> 

 

Keith looks up – the guy has been watching him for a minute now, which is maybe a little weird, right here in the university library, but not inherently bad. He looks nice enough to not be a creep, but Keith had enough bad _grindr_ experiences for a life time, so he won’t take any chances.

“Anything the matter?”, he asks him, because if he’s lingering around, just watching, Keith might as well intimidate him some – just to check if the guy is surprised Keith knows he’s being watched, or not.

“Uh, uhm”, he chuckles nervously, “Uh, I just saw your- and I-“, Keith follows the guy’s gaze until he looks down at the book in his hand. It’s a hardcover about astrophysics worth more than his life and saves his and other student’s lives by lying around, ready to read, at the library.

“Ah”, Keith understands and nods, “sure”, he holds the book up.

He waits until the guy shuffles closer to him and introduces himself.

When he doesn’t reach for the book, Keith slowly lowers his hand and raises a brow.

“I’m Hunk”, he says, and Keith has a fair share of doubts that that might be his real name but doesn’t comment on it. He still doesn’t take the book, so Keith introduces himself, too.

“Ah, Keith. Sounds familiar”, the guy answers and smiles, looks down again.

It’s a bit awkward, standing there with him while neither of them is saying something. Keith is painfully aware of some birds chirping outside, the sound of people scribbling away on paper and a cough somewhere from an elderly gentleman, who’s happily enjoying the free services of the library.

Usually Keith would just turn around and go. But the guy seems nice and honest, and not like he means harm. There’s no reason why Keith suddenly remembers orientation a few semesters back, where someone said that having no social life is a killer for job applications because future bosses want people who like to socialize. In opposite to his usual self, Keith gives himself a little push to carry their conversation.

“So, are you-“, he starts and wants to ask if they are in the same department, but Hunk doesn’t let him finish.

“Uh, yeah”, he tells him and nods enthusiastically. “That’s the reason why I wanted to talk to you, but, uh, not because I want anything from you or-“, he’s spluttering now. Keith doesn’t get what he’s talking about but waits patiently.

 “Anyways”, Hunk fumbles with his fingers, “we have this group and we meet on…Thursdays, yeah. I just wanted to ask if you’re interested maybe?”

Keith doesn’t know what exactly he’s supposed to be interested in. Sounds like there’s a regular’s table for the astrophysics compartment. Are they just drinking beer and talking about physics? Once a week?

For the sake of his future career, Keith slowly nods.

“Alright”, he says, more a question than an answer.

“Cool!”, Hunk exclaims, too loud for a library, “I don’t usually do this, but, yeah, you’re a nice guy, Keith. Wait, I can give you the address and the time! We usually meet at 7.”

As Hunk taps the info down into Keith’s phone, Keith just stands there, book forgotten. He looks down at Hunk’s bowed head, unsure if he wants to take advantage of the offer or not.

Hunk says his goodbye two minutes later and makes him promise to come, tells him everyone’s nice and welcoming and happy to meet him. Keith wonders the whole weekend what this was about and how there aren’t enough astrophysics students at this university who could join the table.

 

 

It’s Thursday, 6:59pm, when Keith thinks, that maybe this isn’t about astrophysics at all.

He’s sitting in the small pub at a table with two women – Hunk’s not here yet, but he asked them if they are here for the regular’s table, too, and they nod and introduce themselves. There’s nothing unusual about them, but as they finished their introductions, Romelle and Allura continue their own conversation, occasionally calling each other “Babe”.

Nothing wrong with that, Keith thinks. Just a _great_ coincidence.

The song that plays from behind bar is a cheeky, happy tune that doesn’t really fit the rustic atmosphere of the inside or outside. A few shabby regulars sit directly in front of the barkeeper, chatting away. Considering it’s an early Thursday evening, there aren’t many people in the bar – they hog a big table at the entrance, which should be fine, considering the only other customers are two old ladies play cards two tables away.

Keith looks back to Allura and Romelle, only half-listening to their conversation.

“It tastes divine, my dear. Don’t you worry”, Allura says with a smile at the blond girl, who purses her lips at her. Keith is pretty sure by now that they are girlfriends.

Hunk doesn’t come in for another while, but a tall man enters soon after Keith gets comfortable – his hair is on the short side and neat, and he has the firm gaze of a high school math teacher, despite looking only a little bit older than Keith himself.

“Hello”, the man says, surprised at the sight of Keith on the table. He holds out his hand and for a lack of a better alternative, Keith takes, shakes and regrets it. If this dude’s aim was to crush Keith’s hand, chances are big that he succeeded.

“Adam”, he introduces, “you’re new?”

The girls don’t listen when Keith reintroduces himself – but they propose ordering some drinks right after. Keith takes a sip of the beer he chose - it tastes bitter and reminds him of why he never goes out or accompanies fellow students to drink beer.

Adam is as chatty as a loaf of bread, which makes Keith consider making up an excuse to go home and chill in his sweatpants all evening, but when he’s about to open his mouth and spill a lie, Hunk busts through the doors of the pub and spots him.

“Keith!”, he exclaims and sits down, throwing his bag into the seat next to him, “you came!”

“Yeah”, Keith answers as if he didn’t just think about dodging the group. Adam isn’t exactly a ray of sunshine and the girl lovers are more interested in each other than anything else (and who can blame them?)

“You met Adam, I see”, Hunk looks at what seems like a natural resting bitch face on that grown man’s face, then to the girls. “Nice nice”, he says again and reaches over the table to pat Keith’s shoulder. “What are you drinking? Beer? It’s usually Pidge who’s the only one drinking that shit. The rest loves sweet drinks. I think I’m getting one, too.”

Keith doesn’t ask what exactly a Pidge is, because they enter shortly after.

“Hey fellows”, they greet everyone and hug Hunk. “Adam”, they salute and grin before sitting down. “Why are y’all just sitting here? Don’t we have something to plan?”

“Well”, Adam says with a sour look on his face, “we’re waiting on our dear club president to make an appearance – if he ever bothers to show up at some point.” It’s 7:30 pm, so he has a point.

Adam is angry at the last person missing from the table and doesn’t try to hide it – Keith wonders what kind of _slack-off_ the person must be that he earns this kind of hate – but Adam has looked stern since he entered, so maybe it’s just easy to anger him.

The waiter gets to their table and asks if they could pay their drinks now, since there is a change of shifts. Everyone reaches for their purse, but Adam’s slips from his hand and falls under the table.

“I’ll get it”, Keith politely offers. Adam doesn’t seem like a bad guy, after all. There’s a small smile from him and he nods – the cue for Keith to duck under the table.

He wishes he hadn’t though – no one seems to bother cleaning down there and if they do, they do a piss-poor job at it. He’s not one to criticize, but he would rather just leave his wallet rot on the ground than take it back. And that says a lot about him and the hygiene of this establishment equally.

He blindly grabs for the wallet first but the spots a small picture that fell out. Keith grabs it, too, and has a brief thought about washing his hands later, when he gets a good look at it. It’s not curiosity, just reflex, he says to himself when sees the idle photograph of two men holding each other.

From above he hears Adam speak to a new voice, the person who was late, Keith assumes-

_“I assumed you abandoned our group, like you’d usually do when things get serious…”_

_“As long as nobody issues an ultimatum to make me chose between this group and things that are literally most important to me…”_

_“So this group is not as important to y-“_

Keith comes up quickly and interrupts the conversation by giving wallet and picture back. “Sorry, that fell out”, he comments on the pic, but Adam snatches it away suspiciously quickly before anyone else can see. The air became thicker, but Hunk relaxes at the sight of Keith being back from below the table.

It’s then that Keith notices the new person sitting at the table – and his heart stops in his chest.

White hair, dreamy eyes, big build. Three things he notices within a few seconds, next to his increased heart rate.

He’s wondering if he has seen the guy before, although a bold hairstyle like his should be memorable.

“Hey”, he greets, seemingly happy to change the topic, “I’m Shiro.”

He greets Keith vibrantly, “You’re Keith, right? It’s good to have someone new to our regular’s and… spice things up.” Keith notices Adam looking to the side, not following the conversation.

“Invited him here”, Hunk says with a confident grin and Keith looks back to him, “although he looked pretty frightening from afar.”

“Good job, Hunk”, Romelle tells him and they high five.

What they say next gets lost on him – Keith stares at Shiro’s wrist.

Next to a fitness watch is a small rainbow wrist band. Keith drops his gaze to his own wrist, and remembers he took his own off. Shiro says something, but he doesn’t hear it.

“Is this a gay regulars’ ?”, he splutters.

Hunk’s mouth falls open – Allura and Romelle turn their heads to him, Adam freezes in his position, arms folded, Pidge snorts.

“Uh”, Shiro says, surprised but without shame, “Yeah. I thought you knew?”

“So, none of you study astrophysics?”

Pidge laughs again, the rest of the group looks at him in confusion.

“I’d rather die”, Romelle finally says.

“Takashi and I do”, Adam comments and looks even less friendly than before.

“Did you bring us another straighty?”, Pidge asks as they elbow Hunk, “Lance won’t be happy he’s not the only one anymore. He always thinks he’s especially blessed that he’s allowed to come here”, they continue and then throw a bold grin Keith’s way.

“Oh yeah”, Hunk mumbles and nods, “he’ll probably hate him.”

If Keith had ever known that there would be a space where people rather assume that he is gay instead of straight, he’d… he doesn’t know what he would have done then. He opens his mouth, but it feels like he’s having a black out.

“Well”, Shiro says, still smiling and caring enough to try saving the situation, “if you already came here, why don’t you stay? It’s not like we’re an exclusive club”, he chuckles. It’s bright and grounding and does things to Keith. “And yeah, we have Lance with us sometimes, but it shouldn’t be an issue”, he adds and smiles at him.

It hits Keith so hard in his face that he doesn’t think about correcting him- telling them that Hunk was right about him, that he’s in fact gay, even though he grew up close to this small town in a much smaller place where people shoot eagles in their free-time and ride their motorcycles through the desert, where nobody talks about being gay but everyone seems to know what it is. He wants to say that he’s and adult but a closeted one and never talked to anyone else about this-

But he doesn’t.

“So…”, Shiro takes a folder out of his bag. “Where do we start today?”

It feels like he has missed his chance to clarify stuff, and after the third or fourth time at the table he still doesn’t know how to spill the truth, so he simply… doesn’t.

They don’t seem to mind – and so Keith stays. He stays the first evening and stays at other meetings where they discuss flyers, banners and different stuff, without ever telling them that he actually belongs to this group.

Keith helps them organize an information desk for orientation, chats with them on Thursdays, meets with Hunk to get food on Wednesdays. And starts talking with Shiro in one of his courses on Fridays (after Shiro spotted him and approached _him_.)

Being at the regulars’ isn’t what he ever thought it would be. Maybe it’s because it’s a small town that everyone in the group is really close. Keith starts liking them more and more, even though he is afraid they will repel him at some point.

They never do.

He doesn’t know how they all identify, because that’s not how a lgbtq* regular’s table works – but there are bits and pieces he learns over two months with them. At their third lunch, Hunk brings his girlfriend and it’s clear that he either identifies as bi or pan, ‘straight guy’ Lance does indeed hate him for making him less special. He dates Pidge who identifies as non-binary and is brought to the table by them from time to time. He learns that Romelle and Allura have been in a sweet relationship since middle school, and that despite an existing picture of them hugging tucked away in Adam’s wallet, Shiro and Adam really _really_ deeply hate each other. More than everything he learns that if you don’t say something when the momentum is there, it feels really _really_ awkward to address it later.

He meets them outside of Thursdays, but his favorite days are Fridays, when he has Shiro all on his own and talks to him in class.

Lastly he learns that Shiro only has to smile at him once more, and he will likely fall deeply, madly, truly in love with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to recommend this fic to others, feel free to link or retweet this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1151572982529220610)!
> 
> _________________________
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> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
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>  ____________


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith thinks he might have a little crush on Takashi #whatasnack Shirogane, but is also busy playing the perfect straight boy at an lgbtq regulars' table, only questioning his life choices like a thousand times or so-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing and editing since 5 hours and it's 3 am in the morning enjoy I suffered for everyoneeee

 

“Another day at Professor Slav’s course.” Shiro greets him with a cheeky smile and Keith can’t hold back his own grin as he slips into the seat next to him. He hands Shiro a small brown bag with visible dark fat stains coming from the rich chocolate muffins inside, while Shiro, in turn, slides him his coffee mug. Keith grabs it with a small ‘thanks’ and takes a sip from the hot brown beverage.

"Yup", Keith says and sighs, too.

There is still some chatter in the room, as the other people taking the class are slowly getting ready to listen to a two-hour-monologue of one of the presumably most intelligent professors at this university, who at the same time is known for being an absolute weirdo. There’s not a single student taking astrophysics that claims to like Slav’s lectures. It’s bad enough that he is an eccentric, monologuing professor, but on top of it all, his lectures are one or two days before the weekend, often at 8 o’clock in the morning. The room is still packed, since all of the students have to take at least one of Slav’s classes every two semesters if they wish to ever finish their degree. Shiro, as Keith heard from him, is especially annoyed by him, since he had had the honor of working as an academic assistant as a part-time job in his second semester – and Slav put him under his wing. Even though he’s annoyed because he, too, has to take his lecture, Shiro doesn’t harbor any grudge against Slav. He just hopes that he doesn’t have to meet him outside of class.

Keith takes his notebook and a pencil out, while Shiro starts his tablet. They both lean back since Slav is nowhere to be seen yet – it means they have a few moments left to chat.

“I have gossip”, Shiro looks at him with a big grin. It’s what makes him most adorable in Keith’s eyes, because when he shares his ‘gossip’ with Keith, it’s not scandalous at all. Shiro is closer to a reallife angel than to someone who’d smash a spider, and if that wasn’t enough already, Keith doesn’t know how to stop his obvious crush on him. For now, he actively does nothing against it.

“Spill it, Shirogane”, Keith leans into him, raising an eyebrow and grins, too.

He reminds himself that looking at Shiro like he’s the sun on a cold winter day doesn’t strategically count as heterosexual behavior, which makes him automatically contemplate all his life choices up to now. Like, he never tried to be that closeted, it just…happened with a whole bunch of lgbt regulars’. Why not.

Keith could just say it. ‘ _By the way, Shiro, I’m gay. I lied. I have the fucking hots for you. Did you really believe I’d pass as straight when I’m with you? I’m ogling you all the time!_ ’ But Keith positively counts as a closet case by now. He doesn’t think he _has_ to hide it from anyone now that he’s grown-up, but if you don’t come out to a bunch of people who are out and have no issue with you being not heterosexual…it’s just awkward. Keith has all reason to feel like a racoon in front of a car every time he tries to talk about this topic in particular. That’s why he leans back after reminding himself that he’s unusually close to Shiro, stops staring and waits for whatever Shiro wants to tell him.

“I’ve heard Lotor wants to come back to the regular’s”, he tells him in a quiet voice. Keith looks at him, puzzled.

“Ah, right, you haven’t met him yet”, Shiro reminds himself, and shrugs. “He’s a good guy… and extravagant. His dad owns all the corporate firms within the next 20 miles. You’ll meet him soon.”

“What’s the deal with him?”

“Nothing, it’s just-“, Shiro wants to answer, but he gets interrupted by the slam of a door.

It’s Professor Slav. He jumps through the door like a maniac and explains in a long frantic monologue how he couldn’t take his bicycle to class as usual, because on the 8th every month there is a possibility that the force of gravity is 0.02³ times bigger than usual, which means he could have forgotten wearing pants to class. With this explanation, he sets up his laptop at the teacher’s desk in the front and leaves everyone puzzled. One of the reasons nobody likes Slav is exactly this; that he’s sometimes just like that. Babbling scientific nonsense that nobody gets, and nobody cares about.

Keith looks back to Shiro who looks like he still tries to comprehend what Slav just said.

With a sigh, he leans back into his chair, then towards Keith again, because the lecture started, and the room got quiet. He’s close, too close. Keith feels his cheeks going red. Shiro’s mouth is near his ear now-

“Nothing, really.”, he mutters in his ear, and Keith can’t stop himself from just _reacting_ , “But he’s our table’s VIP. You have to meet him, and you’ll understand.”

 

It’s Thursday evening, and Keith doesn’t know what’s supposed to be so great about the guy. He’s wearing expensive, tacky clothes, wears tons of jewelry, has straightened long blonde hair which frames his dark face and compliments his brown eyes. If Keith is honest with himself, Lotor is stunning in every aspect, which is worse, because Keith already decided that he’s a massive dick. He has honest doubt that his accent is a real thing, since they are close to the wastelands of Texas, and Lotor sounds like he’s starring as the super villain of a medieval drama. He also loves to throw his hair back in a grand gesture and to grin, whenever Keith stumbles over his own words, and especially when he talks to Shiro.

Keith doesn’t like him, because he feels _way_ too exposed right now.

It starts all with Lotor’s drawn out, lazy smile when Keith introduces himself to him and continues as he is giving a pretentious snort every time Keith addresses Shiro, or smiles at him, or forgets that he’s staring at him for quite a while now. Lotor reacts often enough for Keith to turn to him, eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s your issue?”, he snarls, and it has been Keith’s worst behavior yet.

“Oh”, he aspirates, acts surprised, “did I anger our hot-headed straight Texas boy?”

Keith looks at him, eyes wild. If anything, Lotor is a arrogant shithead.

“Anyways”, Shiro interrupts, throws him and Lotor a glance and raises an eyebrow, “back to the topic? We want to throw a party in two weeks.”

“Ohhh. Good, what’s the occasion? Just because we want to throw one? I mean, that’s alright, I, – uh, I love a good party!” Hunk is chipper as ever. He sits next to Keith and pats his back calmly, having noticed Lotor’s successful attempts to provoke him by now.

“Local fundraising”, Adam states, “that’s the occasion.”

He’s often like this, nursing a pink drink and saying two words. Keith got so used to it, that he came to accept that it’s just part of his personality, and he doesn’t mean any harm. Even more than that – Adam is nice to him. Keith still doesn’t know what his deal with Shiro is, but at this point, he’s too afraid to ask.

“I think we need an official party committee”, Lotor says, loudly from the other end of the table, “Then someone who plans for appetizers; my mother used to order those _exquisite_ salmon one’s from a French bakery downtown.”

Allura strokes her hair back. “I think we should first look at our budget before we buy expensive appetizers – I assume that could be a smarter way to handle things.”

“Allura”, he says, tongue slick, “Princess.” He waggles his eyebrows at her. Keith hates it.

But Allura snorts loudly and starts too laugh.

“You’re right, I cannot fathom I’d be that blind. Of course, we need to act on a rather small budget, unlike that of my family. Then, a budget team, first.”

Shiro nods and writes notes.

“Hunk and I will think of food”, Pidge exclaims and grins across the table, “just like last year.”

“There isn’t anyone better at it than us”, Hunk agrees.

“Enough with the self-praise”, Pidge laughs.

“I guess I’d be able to overview the budget”, Lotor says and Shiro squints at him.

“I’ll help and stop him from ordering expensive stuff”, Allura says and gives her girlfriend a kiss, “Sorry, love.”

“It’s alright”, Romelle giggles. “What’s left then?”

“Someone who works on decorations and someone who’s responsible for box office and sits at the entrance.”

“Then I’m doing box office with Shiro”, she says.

“If he’s able to commit to something for a whole evening”, Adam comments and ignores the sour look Shiro throws him.

Everyone divided into a team, except for… Keith and Adam.

“Whatever is left”, Adam shrugs and looks to Keith. Keith doesn’t like the way he acts towards Shiro, but at least he’s been decent to him. “I’ll help”, he agrees, and with that, it’s settled.

Still, Keith hoped he would end up with Shiro in one group.

 

Throwing a queer party doesn’t sound like much work, but there several small things to prepare, and two weeks are not enough time. Keith helps putting posters up in the whole city with Pidge on Monday, calls a list of DJ’s on Tuesdays. He’s more involved in the process than some of the others, and he doesn’t mind, just hopes it will be a natural realization at some point, that a person _that_ invested in a lgbtq regular’s table, might not be _that_ straight.

He visits Shiro at his flat a few days later because Adam has work and is unable to do his part for the party preparation. Shiro offered to take his part, but it’s still a lot of work to do the decorations all on his own.

Keith is more than free (and it’s his responsibility to manage the decorations, too), and even if it wasn’t, he’d even cancel a rendezvous with his mom to do some shitty decorations, just _because_ he could be with Shiro.

“Sorry, I know it’s a mess in here”, Shiro greets him at the door and smiles, “my roommate is one of the messy-never-cleans kinds.”

Keith laughs and takes his shoes of, before a loud groan startles him.

“I’ve heard exactly what you said, Shiro”, a shout comes from behind closed doors, where Keith assumes to be the roommate’s room, “And I want your new hot flame to know that your roommate is also the kind of guy who let your sad ass live with him after he got dumped by his ex-boyfriend.”

“Matt”, he shouts back, “it’s not a date, it’s just a friend!”

Shiro might be the hot flame Keith wants, but apparently, it’s not the other way around. Duly noted.

“Hey Matt”, Keith shouts, too, “It’s me, Keith!” Nothing wrong with introducing yourself.

“Ah, Keith”, there’s a long pause, “the cute straight one, huh?”, an almost inaudible mutter.

Shiro coughs hard. “Anyways-“, he shouts, but stops as Keith puts an arm on his shoulder to stop him.

He looks at him. “Won’t we disturb your neighbors when we’re screaming through closed doors like that?”

Shiro’s cheeks are covered in slight pink when he looks back at Keith, then he shrugs and sighs, “We probably will. Come on, let’s go to my room.”

When he said it’s his roommate who’s messy, Shiro was right – his own room doesn’t show one inch of untidy space. His posters are neatly pinned to the wall, all either have to do with the solar system or a band that Keith never heard of before. There’s a small laptop on his wooden desk, a couple of books stacked on it, a lamp with a ton of stickers.

Keith spies a picture on the wall –

“You have a brother?”, he mumbles out loud, too surprised. He’s the spitting image of Shiro – broad, but maybe not as broad, cute smile. His hair is raven, but other than that, the face is almost the same.

“Uh-“

“That’s cute”, he grins and points at the picture before Shiro can answer, “I didn’t know.”

“Well”, Shiro says, following him with his eyes as he sits down on the ground, “that’s what happens when you agree to help me with stuff. You learn more about my uninteresting life?”

Keith can’t complain. Going to Shiro’s flat to _help_ him has been the best idea he ever had, yet.

They get to work, assembling lots and lots of rainbow-colored decorations, write on a few posters to create a menu for drinks and an information poster for entry fees.

It’s only a few things, but Shiro gets himself and Keith some tea later, they chat about movies and music (Keith finds out that the band of every last of Shiro’s posters is _Portu-gal the moon_ and promises to give them a try) and lie on the carpet when they’re tired and Shiro promises that they only will close their eyes for a few tiny seconds.

As they lie there, Keith realizes that he can ignore his heartbeat when he’s talking to Shiro, but he can’t ignore the feeling of it bumping away louder and louder in his rib case, reaching a maximum speed whenever he is with Shiro, making his lips tremble in anticipation when Shiro leans too close again.

As he closes his eyes, he admits to himself that he’s coming down with a crush as hard as someone comes down with a cold – unexpected and fast, and nothing they can do about it.

They are both still lying on the carpet when Shiro turns his head to him. Keith does the same.

“You’re really a good guy”, Shiro tells him with his warm voice, “doing _all_ this stuff. I swear”, he laughs, “Lance would never.”

 _Lance would also never fall for you, he thinks._ Keith’s gaze becomes unfocused, but focused at the same time, staring at Shiro’s lips because looking at his prevents him from thinking one coherent thought, he certainly feels that this quiet moment, this is his chance to come clean-

“You’re a really good friend”, Shiro continues, “I’m happy we’re having so many nice people at the regulars’. In the beginning it was only me and Adam, you know.”

Adam. He wants to sigh. Adam is just a big secret, isn’t it?

Keith doesn’t dare to say anything, doesn’t dare to ask about Adam. He’s too afraid of what the answer is, so he just hums and closes his eyes, and doesn’t try to think about how he could just roll closer and on Shiro, kissing him mindless and showing him how _not straight_ he is.

 

It’s a few days later, when he finally feels brave enough.

“Hunk”, he says when they are at the cafeteria, eating their lunch. Hunk just put a spoonful of noodles into his mouth.

“Hm?” The gentle guy looks at him, mouth full.

“I’m gay”, he tells him and waits. Hunk doesn’t react scandalized or surprised, he is calm.

“Huh”, is all he says first, then picks at his potatoes with his fork, “you only realized that now, or…?”

“No”, Keith says, “I knew since before I joined.”

“Ah”, he cocks his head, “I thought so, you know, the rainbow wristband and everything.”

Keith nods, then gives him a relieved smile.

And that’s that.

 

Keith has a test to write and on Monday and he’s studying the whole weekend – but being able to fill out everything quickly and having a confident feeling that he passed is everything to him. Upon hearing about it, Shiro offers his help for his next test, too. Everything feels great.

The party is on Friday evening in a small club at the other end of town – he meets Adam there early so they can decorate before the other’s arrival.

“Sorry for not being able to prepare”, Adam tells him when he opens Keith the back door of the club and lets him in. “My part-time job was really busy that week, someone messed up the orders”, he sighs. Keith believes him on the spot. Adam seems too honest, to be lying about that.

Keith accepts the apology and hands over colorful posters and garlands, a pack of balloons and rainbow-flags. “I had fun preparing them with Shiro, gladly he had time to help.”

Adam doesn’t comment, only gives him a small restricted smile. Keith thinks nothing of it, and they go to work, listen to some background party music.

“I can make us drinks”, Adam proposes after half an hour – they still have a few hours left until the others arrive and Keith shrugs and agrees to it.

“Uh, I love that song”, he tells him as Adam moves back to the bar. Adam nods and laughs, then turns the music up a notch. He starts mixing their drinks and Keith grins to himself, likes to see the stoic and sometimes unfriendly-Adam enjoy himself for once.

The club has a coffee-bar-like room in the front and a smaller room with dancefloors in the back. Keith really likes the atmosphere, because it’s chill, but you could also dance.

An hour later they put up a ton of decorations but haven’t blown the balloons yet. Keith thinks the drink was too heavy or he is a light weight or maybe both, but he jumps through the room to ABBA as he puts up some more garlands. Adam sings along to the music quite happily, mixing them both another drink.

“The others will be here soon. They texted me that they want to test the speakers”, Adam shouts over the music and Keith raises a thumb to sign him that he heard him.

When the other’s ring the bell, Keith is already drunk of his ass and dances to the front door before Adam can even think about opening it.

“Heyyyy Shiro”, he slurs and falls into his arms – Shiro is smart enough to just catch him, no questions asked.

“Oh my”, Lotor appears behind him, entering the small club and grins. “I wished guys would swoon that way into _my_ arms”, he comments, and Keith can’t even be mad, he for sure agrees for once with Lotor.

“Allura”, he calls for his friend when he walks by the mirror in the entrance, “Don’t you think I’m looking broader today?”, he says with a confident grin. Allura walks in behind him, puts her bag on the sofa, moves to his side and looks at him for a moment while he’s flexing and angling his upper body forward. “Yes”, she says with a soft smile on her face while he’s smoothing over his chest area, checking for the flatness.

“The things we go through to make ourselves presentable”, he tells her thoughtful and raises an eyebrow at Allura who raises her brows in return and smiles back.

Lance and Pidge stumble in next, and after them, Hunk accompanies them with Shay.

“It looks really good”, Lance tells Adam who fixes his next drink. “So, you’re the one making Keith drunk?”

They both look to Shiro who is unable to move or do something with Keith looping his hands around his neck.

“Guilty as charged”, Adam says, not looking guilty at all, and raising his drink, “anyone wants a Manhattan?”

Everyone but Lotor does, and they go sit in the couch corner.

“I invited my friends”, Lotor declares and everyone growns.

“Your lesbian squad?”, Romelle asks and laughs.

“What do you have against my lesbian squad?”

“Nothing”, Allura says quickly, “but it feels like they prefer to… not be with us, actually?”

“Nonsense”, Lotor says with a big gesture.

“It is the truth, Lotor!”, Romelle exclaims, “The last time I spoke with Ezor, Zethrid thought I was going to snatch her away! I just explained where the bathroom is!”

“Acxa sometimes strikes me as a bit bitter”, Allura agrees softly. Lance just shrugs, Pidge doesn’t seem to care either.

“Maybe she’s just a bit shy”, Shiro says as he steps towards the group and lets Keith flop into one of the chairs, looking close to passing out, not because he drank too much, but because alcohol makes him unbelievably tired.

“I’m shy, too”, he mumbles and is happy to say that his new found friends luckily ignore drunk-him.

 

The first guests appear an hour later, when everything is set up and the DJ has arrived, too.

Keith is sobering up on the couch while Shiro and Romelle sell the tickets right at the entrance. He’s watching as Shiro greets the guests and perks up at every new person arriving, white tuft moving with him. He’s _so_ cute.

“Oh god”, Keith helplessly gurgles into the glass of water that Adam brought to him a while ago. He knows, he’s got it bad. He’s sitting alone by now, since the couples have gone dancing with Lotor’s lesbian squad as soon as they arrived. Some others are working (selling tickets, drinks, and so on).

Everyone is gone from the couch corner, but Lotor is still sitting next to him, nipping at a fruity non-alcoholic drink as he’s watching the party guests.

“Where you assigned to be my watch-dog?”, Keith mumbles, alcohol still not fully out of his system. It’s unfair – he had _two_ cocktails, _maybe_.

“Yes”, Lotor says, voice dark. He’s not looking at him, not looking at anybody really. He’s sometimes glancing to the bar, but Keith thinks it has something to do with him not drinking today.

“You can go, you know?”, Keith states harshly, struggling to sit up straight but sinking back into the comfort of the big cushions quickly again. Damn, they are just… so damn comfy.

“Can’t”, Lotor smacks his lips, “Shiro told me to watch over you.”

The heat raises into Keith’s cheeks. “He did?”, he mumbles to himself. Lotor’s face scrunches in annoyance. Happy to change the topic quickly.

“You know they dated?”, he asks Keith and turns his head to look at him. Keith’s heart starts thumping in his chest, but he doesn’t dare to ask who he’s talking about. He doesn’t have to.

Lotor nods towards Adam and then looks back to Keith.

“Shiro and Adam. They were talking about marriage back then.”

Keith’s whole stomach turns. So that’s the story.

“And if you ought to ask me, personally”, he says slowly, voice smooth like a panther’s, “they still got it bad for each other.”

“What makes you say that?”, Keith asks as he’s observing Shiro smiling and talking to the people. He looks beautiful – Keith even more, wants to kiss him.

“I just need to look at them”, Lotor complains and Keith gets the feeling that he’s personally affected by it, too. “They also had an _intense_ ”, he rolls the word over his lips, “sexual relationship, for months after the break-up.” Lotor says it so casually, turning the glass in his hand and swirling the drink.

That’s too much – Keith stands up abruptly, moving away, right to the room where the people are dancing, and the music is too loud to talk. He hopes he finds Hunk there-

Luckily, he does. Hunk, Pidge, Shay and Lance are dancing in a round of four people and Keith joins them, happy to know Lotor doesn’t see the need to follow him.

“How are you, Keith?”, Hunk screams over the music and slings his big arms around him, “Sober again?”

“Yeah”, Keith shouts back. He is _now_.

“Oh, look who’s coming”, Hunk shouts and nods behind Keith. Shiro must have seen him storm off to the dance floor. He arrives and waggles next to Keith.

“Let’s dance?”, he shouts over the music and Keith nods, thoughts only circling around the new information he’s got. Him and Adam. In a relationship – close to marriage. In love. Then in a friends-with-benefits relationship. He just wants to stop thinking about it-

The music is loud but good and dancing with Shiro is unbearable, because he’s looking _so_ hot while dancing, and also entirely too close as he’s asks Keith if everything’s alright.

Keith knows he can’t be jealous – not when there’s nothing going on between them. There’s no reason to be jealous because of Adam, since he and Shiro have nothing but a shared class and something like a friendship. He can’t be jealous if Shiro doesn’t even know that Keith likes men.

The beat is thumping along to his heart, while stops dancing, just stands there still and stares at Shiro. It’s the wrong approach, but he feels desperate for it and takes two steps to come closer to him-

Shiro smiles and welcomes him into his arms, not realizing what Keith is up to. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but no, it already wore off, that’s on him now. He’s looking at Shiro’s shining eyes blinking along to the disco lights and can’t stop himself licking over his lips, being so close to him just brings his brain to a grinding halt and sets all of his body on fire.

They _broke_ _up_ , so it’s _okay_ to do this, Keith thinks as he closes his eyes shut, last look only seeing Shiro’s surprised face. He shouldn’t do this, but he’s moving slowly, Shiro can push him away. It doesn’t matter if anyone sees it, too, it’s just something that is unpreventable, being attracted to Shiro is just like being a bee and attracted to flowers, it’s essential and everything in his body is just buzzing with nerves, fluttering with the feeling of having fallen for him-

His lips barely touch Shiro’s as he hears a sudden, loud screech.

“Veronica is doing what?” It’s Lance, and he’s shouting. Pidge laughs.

Keith can’t open his eyes, really, to shocked by what he has done. When he does, Shiro still looks down on him, still surprised, but with gentle eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to recommend this fic to others, feel free to link or retweet this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1151572982529220610)!
> 
> _________________________
> 
> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
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> This author replies to comments.  
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason (sometimes I feel shy when I’m reading and not up to starting a conversation, for example), feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!  
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	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a short update for now! I'm busy finishing up my other multi-chap fic and trying to keep school and writing more balanced.  
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy the chapter! Rating will get up for the next one ;D

Nobody saw them kissing, because Lance is making a scene.

“My sister is not going to kiss one of Lotor’s weird friends.” His face is red from the alcohol and anger – Hunk dragged him outside for his own good, and Shiro walked out with them, concerned for whatever just happened. Keith tagged along, quiet, while Pidge just keeps laughing louder and louder.

“Damn, just chill,” they tell Lance and brush their hair out of her face, “Veronica is an adult – she can do what she wants.”

“But with Acxa,” Lance screeches, “maybe she’s a crazy person, who knows?”

“She seems nice,” Shiro helps, hand in his hair, ruffling his white tuft. Since Keith kissed him a few minutes earlier, he hasn’t looked a second time at him again, and that’s… _totally_ fine, Keith _doesn’t_ feel a painful throb in his chest like he is dying right now, or something like that _at_ _all_.

“Sure she does,”, Lance says again, face getting a little less red, and voice sounding a little less angry, but then it boils again, and his voice is loud, “but I don’t trust Lotor-“

“Why?”, Shiro asks him, voice also a tad louder. Keith realizes that they might have not having this conversation for the very first time, and he wonders in his sober and numb state if he’ll ever find about what’s going on. He just stares at Shiro who looks like he certainly lost his cool about this, too. “He’s eccentric, yes, but there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s a good guy.” Shiro says, arms folded.

Lance stares at Shiro, eyes wild. It’s clear as day that he’s angry, but his lips are pressed to a thin line, preventing him from saying something he doesn’t want to say. A few seconds are passing with no one saying anything – Lance has shown to have a lot of respect for Shiro even though he literally doesn’t have it for anybody else, and Keith thinks that’s why Lance’s eyes soften. He breaks the stare-off with Shiro and looks to the ground.

“Yeah”, he sighs finally, “You’re right”, he says, still not looking up, “Sorry.”

Nobody says anything, until Pidge takes out a cigarette and lights it, takes a deep breath. “Nice that we’re all outside for once”, they say and look up to the sky. It’s completely silent outside, only the light bass from the inside audible.

Hunk clears his throat because there’s still some tension in the air. “So, your sister is bisexual,” he says and doesn’t wait for an answer to that obvious fact, “Yeah. Why not? That’s _nice_.” Hunk smiles and pats his back. “That means _she’s_ got a reason to come to our regulars’.”

“Other than you,” Pidge chimes in and gives Lance a little kiss on his cheek.

“Message received,” the slim boy with brown hair grumbles, “but what about Keith?”

Keith sees Hunk open his mouth and close it, sees Shiro’s shoulders tense. Pidge raises an eyebrow at Shiro, while Lance is oblivious to it all.

“We’re not like that”, Shiro explains, “everyone is welcome, you know that. You, _too_ , Lance.”

“Thanks, my friendo~,” Lance clicks his tongue and slings an arm around Shiro’s shoulders, “Apparently, you’re my only friend here,” he adds with a sour look at Hunk and Pidge. Keith stays mute – he’s tired and sobered up enough to not engage in this tiring conversation.

“How long until the party is over?” he yawns.

Hunk shrugs. “Usually until 4?”

“Oh god,” Keith whines.

“It’s okay,” Shiro touches his shoulder and ignores how Keith flinches in response, “Keith, you can go earlier. Most of usually stay until the end, so one person more or less is not an issue.”

Keith smiles weakly at him, then nods.

“Yeah. Boy, you look tired,” Lance agrees.

 

When they go back inside, Veronica, Lance’s sister is still trying to suck Acxa’s soul out through her mouth, Lotor is sitting at the bar, talking to Adam, and the rest of _Lotor’s lesbians_ won over the dancefloor.

“I think I’m going to get my stuff,” Keith says, mood dropping exponentially, “and then go home, soon. “

“Oh, poor boy,” Shay coos and leans into Hunk, “first night out?” She teases Keith.

His answer is only a short snort before he walks to the back, snatches his coat and bag and walks to the front again. He goes through his pockets as he’s walking back to his friends. He waves at Adam who’s smiling back at him and then turns to Lotor, eyes still soft.

 _Interesting_.

“Do you know how to get back?” Shiro’s question catches him off guard. His bigger frame is suddenly very much near Keith and he’s bend over, so that his mouth is close to his ear, too.  Keith tries not to think about the fact that their lips brushed earlier, and what Shiro thinks about him now, having so obviously not reacted to the kiss.

“I came here by myself, so, _yeah_ ”, Keith says while he’s still going through his stuff, now more frantically. Where are his keys?

“Are you sober enough?” Shiro asks him as he observes Keith’s frantic search for his keys. He moved a little closer and it’s making Keith a nervous, really nervous. Equally as nervous as being unable to find his keys.

“Sure”, Keith says, hands still feeling in his pockets for the key. He was _sure_ he put it in his jacket.

“Fuck.”

“What?” Shiro bends over him. Damn, he’s tall.

Keith sighs. “I think I forgot my keys.”

When he looks up into Shiro’s eyes, Shiro offers a small smile.

 “Well shit.”

“Uhhh, calling the landlord?”, Shiro proposes helpfully, one hand raised and his teeth showing.

“At half past two in the morning? She’d probably throw me out for waking her.”

Hunk overhears their talk and comes closer.

“Did you forget your keys, oh _Keith_ ,” he laughs. “Sorry. _Keys_ and _Keith_ just sound so similar.”

“Only if you have a lisp.” Shiro raises an eyebrow at him.

“Damn, Shiro,” he leans against him, closes his eyes. Shiro pats his back. “You’re right.”

“What do I do?”, Keith says, not having a lot from their conversation, eyes wide and already stressing. “I-“

“Oh, Keith, it shouldn’t be an issue, right?” Hunk asks him, “You could come sleep with most of us, but I think Shiro is the one with the big bed.”

“Uh, I don’t know, I think-,” Shiro starts, noticeably nervous, with Keith standing right next to him, not looking at him. Hunk just stares at him.

“Ohh, I _get_ it. It’s okay, Shiro, my man.” He pats his back. “I know you’re always staying until the end of our parties, but we will have an eye on everyone, relax. Shay promised she’s going to help to tidy up afterward, too.”

Keith's cheeks are burning – Shiro couldn’t be more obvious for not wanting him to stay over, but he’s nice, so he wouldn’t just turn down Keith. That’s okay, Keith gets it, he understands it. He wouldn’t offer himself his bed either.

It’s been an hour and Keith regrets giving him a kiss and misreading everything more than anything else in his life.

He just wants to get home. Or sleep at Hunk’s, maybe.

“You’re right”, Shiro says. “If Keith doesn’t mind”, he proposes, but still doesn’t really look at him.

“If you’re nice enough to let me stay over”, he counters, “I guess I will come sleep with you. I mean - in your bed.”

“Sounds good!”, Hunk exclaims and slaps his palms together. “We’re such a good team.”

 

They walk home because Keith hasn’t gotten a bicycle yet and there are no busses at this time of the night running from the one side of the town to the other. Shiro lives nearby, so they hardly walk longer than twenty minutes. The night wind slaps enough sanity back into Keith’s face for him to stay silent as he’s worried about their friendship – it’s not like Shiro could get the clue and know Keith is actually gay, but if he isn’t into him, he isn’t into him – maybe it was weird for him to make any advances? Maybe he shouldn’t have?

Keith has finally found a group of accepting friends (Lotor and Lance aside), and he’s not ready to ruin it. He just can fall back out of love, and maybe Shiro’s entirely uninterested in him and wants to get back with Adam anyway? Adam, who’s the spitting opposite of him and who Shiro was ready to marry, Adam, with whom he drank cocktails earlier and had fun, Adam who he likes. Chances are high that Adam is still in love with Shiro, or why would he have their picture in his purse? And would put it back there, after it lay on the disgusting ground at the bar for more than a minute???

“Keith? We arrived”, Shiro calls out to him. He was brooding the whole time and almost missed Shiro’s flat. “Uh”, he says intelligently and jogs back to Shiro, enters the house.

“I do hope Matt is asleep already. He will _not_ shut up about this”, Shiro says, considerably still more drunk than Keith is, and Keith wonders what he means by that – but he’s nice and therefore just hurries to get into Shiro’s room, no questions asked.

“Uhh”, Shiro says entirely too eloquent and walks to his closet. “Get yourself comfortable?”

“Alright”, Keith says and gets his pants off. He will simply sleep in underwear, that’s alright. He already lies on the bed, too tired to cast his gaze away as Shiro changes into his sleepwear, thinks of dead kittens and drowning dogs as he’s staring at Shiro’s naked ass for a split second.

Keith is just praying to the gods for not letting his body pop a boner as soon as Shiro lies down next to him.

“Are you still drunk, Shiro?”, Keith asks him, trying hard to get the image of Shiro’s tight sexy ass that burned itself against his inner eyelids out of his mind, “you should drink some water.” Good, very good, Keith, he praises himself inwardly, said like a good mother. Not like a bad, _very_ bad friend, who’s got the hots for his good platonic friend. Just like a…good bro, maybe.

“Kinda”, Shiro sighs, “everything turns.” He reaches for a bottle next to the bed and shakes it in the air for Keith to see, “Got something here.”

Keith is nervous as hell and it doesn’t help that Shiro is radiating body warmth as hot as the burning sun right next to him. He suspects that the warmth is not the only reason he’s sweating and rolls onto the side, trying to block Shiro out of his sight and out of his mind.

Shiro props his head up on one arm and looks at the ceiling, mind circling.

“It’s really nice of you to help us out.” When Keith doesn’t react, he simply closes his eyes, tries to calm his breath and heart. He’s exhausted enough to quickly fall asleep – and with Shiro’s calm breath, Keith does, too.

 

He doesn’t know how late it is when he awakes – Keith only squints into the dark, trying to make out where he is until he remembers he lies in Shiro’s bed. It’s nothing to get nervous about, he tells himself and gets up to get to the bathroom – he definitely drank too much and still can’t understand how Adam looked fully unaffected by the four cocktails they had together.

Keith squints at himself in the mirror as he’s washing his hands – a small clock in the bathroom hints that it’s past 4 am, early enough to go back to sleep.

When he walks back to the bedroom, Shiro is stirring and slowly sits up, rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t notice Keith entering the room first but visibly relaxes as Keith sits down next to him and tries to get back to the wall side of the bed.

Shiro groans, “My head hurts.”

Keith softly laughs, “Mine, too. But at least the alcohol has worn off for a while now.”

“I still feel a little dizzy. But yeah, not drunk anymore.”

“Good. Drink some water?” Keith suggests and lies back into the cushions. He observes the short nod that Shiro gives as well as him reaching for the water bottle. He spills a bit on his shirt as he drinks greedily. He sets down the bottle and sighs.

They both lie down next to each other and Keith wishes he wasn’t aware of how close they are.

“What about the keys?” Shiro asks him through dark eyelashes, lid half closing.

“What keys?”

“The ones you forgot.”

“Oh. Yeah. I will call the landlord about that later.”

Shiro seems satisfied with his answer and closes his eyes completely. He’s even closer now, and if Keith ever hoped to get another round of sleep, it’s over with that. Shiro looks like a hot angel when he’s lying still like that and Keith tries to ignore the warm breath that’s hitting his face and neck full on, tries to ignore Shiro’s raising and sinking chest. He’s too hot.

_Hot damn._

“Keith,” he says and Keith startles.

“What?”

“Are you staring at me?” Shiro asks, but there’s a small grin on his face.

“Why?”

“It’s distracting me.”

“You’re just self-conscious.”

“Mhm.”

Keith can’t hide the redness that creeps up his face, shuts his eyes and hopes he will disappear right here, right now. The sensation of feeling Shiro next to him grows more intense, but he can also feel Shiro’s breath hitch and imagines his heart rate picking up. When he opens his eyes again, he catches Shiro looking – he wants to ask him if it was wrong to kiss him earlier at the party but gets lost in his dark eyes.

“Shiro—,” he starts and misses in a blink of an eye how Shiro leans forward and then stops.

“What—”

“Uhh—” Keith’s eyes move to the side, away from him, “I just wanted…never mind, forget it.”

Shiro looks at him, eyes gentle and a small smile when he whispers an “Okay.”

Keith doesn’t know how he will survive this night.

Shiro is even closer than before and Keith doubts he does it on purpose. When he looks up again, Shiro, in turn, looks down to him, his smile growing shyer, his grin slowly disappearing. Keith’s gaze must be intense because he keeps staring back, holds his breath as he looks down down _down_ , deep into Keith’s eyes, drowning in their darkness. Keith, on the opposite, observes Shiro’s light hair, his shimmering eyes, his bright face—

Shiro’s like the sun shining on him.

It’s dumb, but there’s no way to stop it – only if Shiro says so, only if he doesn’t want to—

Keith tips upward, raises his head and closes his eyes – he’s feeling Shiro’s warm breath again on his face, even more clearly, warmer, hotter even—

And he doesn’t know how to process it, how to understand—

 

That Shiro, too—

 

Moves towards him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hardcore waggling my eyebrows*
> 
>  
> 
> _________________________________  
> If you want to recommend this fic to others, feel free to link or retweet this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1151572982529220610)!
> 
> _________________________
> 
> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> This author replies to comments.  
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason (sometimes I feel shy when I’m reading and not up to starting a conversation, for example), feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!  
> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I'm back with a new chapter~
> 
> We're in for the final round, I upped the chapter count from 4 to 5 chapters and I *clenches fist* plan to end it at 5 chapters.  
> Let's see what happens next time, lmao.
> 
> If you want, you can always follow me on twitter. Other than writing I also do art & cosplay, as well as fic threads! (Sheith fwb is the current one I'm writing.)
> 
> EDIT:  
> RATING CHANGED
> 
> That's it for now, hope you enjoy!

What happened last time:

 

_It’s dumb, but there’s no way to stop it – only if Shiro says so, only if he doesn’t want to—_

_Keith tips upward, raises his head and closes his eyes – he’s feeling Shiro’s warm breath again on his face, even more clearly, warmer, hotter even—_

_And he doesn’t know how to process it, how to understand—_

_That Shiro, too—_

_Moves towards him._

 

* * *

* * *

**Chapter IV**

 

 

 

The food falls out of his mouth back on his plate.

“You two did what?”

“Sshh,” Keith hisses in an attempt to make Hunk shut up.

Keith doesn’t know how he went from zero friends to having friends who he can spill the most intimate things to within a few months. But, here he is, sitting together with Hunk in the university’s cafeteria over lunch like always, talking about his currently most intimate secret.

“I can’t believe it,” Hunk says and takes another spoon of his curry rice, “that he would do that.”

Keith quietly thinks, _me neither_. Then he remembers Lotor spilling the fact that Shiro and Adam had an ‘intense sexual relationship’ after their break-up, and he can imagine it a bit better. He tries not to let his feelings get hurt by this thought, because, really… it’s not like he has feelings. Not for Shiro. Not for anyone.

“It’s not a big thing.” Keith fails acting nonchalantly and Hunk sees right through it.

“Yeah. Totally. You go to our LGBT* table, you don’t tell anyone you’re gay,” he’s hisses as to not talk to loud about Keith’s private life in the cafeteria, “then you have sex with the _one guy_ everyone, no matter how straight or gay they are, kind of has a crush on.”

Keith blushes. He leans forward, voice low as he asks. “Do you?”

Hunk laughs nervously and scrubs the back of his head, then he leans forward, too.

“Maybe …I had, for a week or so,” he answers, truthfully, with a look that says ‘please don’t tell anyone’. Keith nods and they both lean back again.

Keith of all people, can understand. The first day he went to the regular’s table, he was sure there has never been a more beautiful person in the world than Shiro. He seems like the nicest person, too. Keith sighs dreamily, then breaks out of it.

“Anyways. It’s not like we did a lot.” Keith stabs his carrots, completely unrelated.

“Let me recap,” Hunk says and Keith regrets his words already, “you and Shiro jerked each other of half-drunk on the night of the party.”

He takes a sip of his apple soda as Keith slowly proceeds to sink into his chair. “You sucked him off a week later in the university’s bathroom, and I have to say that yeah, this is a bit disgusting – people _pee_ there okay?”

Keith has to laugh against all odds and Hunk grins, too.

“And you now have sex once a week?” He concludes.

“Yes,” Keith exhales. It’s hard to look Hunk in the eyes. “Yes, _okay_. _You’re right_. The worst is, it always happens when we meet up to study for Slav’s course. I slowly get the impression I will fail his course this semester.”

“Maybe if you, uhh, I _don’t know_ , could take your hands of Shiro for a second, you might have a chance to _study_ with him.” Hunk closes his eyes as he takes another bite and hums.

“It’s hard, okay.” Keith isn’t proud of it, but liking Shiro feels like a drug; he craves it every time he’s in reach, wants more and more of it. Luckily there are less regrets with kissing Shiro in his bed than with drugs. Not that Keith would have the balls to take some. He lets his head sink into his hands dramatically.

“I don’t know how it happened, okay.”

Hunk reaches over and pats him on the back. “There, there,” he says. Then he gets settles back into his chair and folds his arms in thought.

“Yours and Shiro’s story is wild,” he states. “Shay and I got together really really normally, if you’d call it that.”

Keith bites his tongue to not disagree with him right now. It’s okay if Hunk thinks that what they have is a bit more serious than it is. He’s also interested in Hunk’s and Shay’s story. He hasn’t met Shay very often but she feels like a gentle and kind soul and someone Keith would like to hang out more often with.

“How?”

 “She accidentally elbowed me into my face when she tried to get a wine bottle open.” Hunk smiles softly as he brushes his bangs out of his face to show the small scar. “Thirteen stitches. She went to the hospital with me and hold my hand at the doctor’s, even though we we’re complete strangers back then.”

“Sounds romantic,” Keith snorts, but he means it.

 

 *

 

Keith thinks he’s loosing his sanity for good.

“Keith,” Shiro moans, long and drawn out and he looks… oh—so—good—

Keith dips down to take his nipple between his teeth, mouths at his chest and place kisses on the skin, wherever he can reach. Dick buried inside Shiro’s wet asshole is undisputable the best feeling in the world, that Keith knows of currently, and when he bends forward to kiss Shiro, the white-haired guy’s breath hitches. He groans again from the small movement of Keith’s cock inside him.

Keith loves it, loves sex with Shiro, and it’s safe to say he maybe likes Shiro, too.

“You’re great,” he mutters, kissing Shiro’s jaw and his mouth, “damn, you feel _so_ good.”

Shiro clenches his teeth, stutters a moan out. “Fuck, Keith. Move, alright?” he groans. Keith doesn’t have to be told twice. It’s slow, first, drawn out – he knows Shiro must have had a respectable amount of practice in his earlier relationship, taking his dick so well, but he’s still careful, doesn’t want him to hurt. Other than that, it’s a new sensation, something he has never done with anyone before.

“God”, he groans as he moves out of him and snaps his hips back, but controlled, not violently. Shiro’s toes curl and he grabs for anything to hold on, “it’s good”, he sighs, “you can move more, please, Keith-“

Keith wants to come right then and there, his eyes rolling back at the lewd tone of Shiro’s voice. However he imagined sex would be with him, it was nothing like that. Shiro looks like a god, thick muscles and shining chest, his own cock bouncing at the movement of Keith’s hips.

“Oh,” Shiro gasps at the new angle that Keith introduces. “Fuck, you’re so good with your dick,” he says as he watches Keith’s cock going in and out. Keith moves down to kiss him again, can’t resist those beautiful lips and the shock of white hair.

Shiro holds him tight to his body, let’s himself get fucked and moves against him to match his thrust. Keith gets weaker with every trust, loving that feeling of Shiro tight around his cock and the friction they create, but he gets quicker, listening to Shiro’s low groans and growls, feels his nails digging in his back.

“Wait, wait,” Shiro slaps lightly on his shoulder for Keith to notice, “not that _quick_ , alright?”

Keith is a bit embarrassed for not holding the rhythm, but he only wants for Shiro to feel good, he nods and gets slower, pulls his cock out longer, brushing his prostate deliciously. Shiro’s moans grow more ecstatic, and louder, too. Keith tries and touches his dick as he’s fucking into him, and he likes it. Oh _fuck_ , he does.

“Okay,” Shiro sighs after a while, “faster, Keith, fuck. Fuck me.”

There’s no holding back – Shiro meets the frantic thrusts Keith delivers him as he fucks his ass, listening to the repeated slap and the thump of his heart – he knows he can’t hold out long when Shiro holds onto him like that and sounds like that, putting his own hand over Keith’s which is stroking his dick in a solid repeated motion.

“Fuck,” Shiro says again, lifting and bending his back upwards from the mattress. “Faster,” he sighs, “F-fuck, Keith, I-I’m, ah-“

Keith is close, too, he tries to hold out as long as he can, hips stuttering already – and when he feels Shiro’s hole clench at him, he knows he’s able to let go –

The orgasm rips through him and he groans loudly, gasps and moans more, holds onto Shiro who’s spilling in and over his hand, and stutters and kisses him, while they are both coming.

“Shit,” Keith curses. He slowly pulls out, dick already limping, pulls the condom off and discards it with a knot into the bin near the bed. He turns back to the bedand lies on there, right next to him, where Shiro’s sprawled out, slowly trying to catch his breath and coming down from his orgasm.

“Thanks,” Shiro says, because he feels it’s the appropriate thing to say.

“Thank you, too,” Keith says, because he doesn’t know if or if it’s not the correct thing to say after sex.

Shiro gives him a kiss and Keith returns it, feverently. He thinks about telling Shiro that he likes him a lot, that he loves how Shiro moves every time they get down and dirty like this. But maybe this is just a thing Shiro likes to do with just everyone – his ex or new friends. Keith just doesn’t know.

They part in the evening after ordering some pizza and doing minimal effort for their homework and for the upcoming test. Keith by now is pretty sure, they will fail it, but he also doesn’t care.

 

*

 

Aside from what Shiro makes out of their … _relationship_ , there’s another thing that’s puzzling to Keith: It’s Lotor. Sometimes, Lotor is nice to him, sometimes he’s the biggest dick on earth. A snarky comment put between two sentences is what usually lets Lotor get away with it and nobody calls him out on it. But then, another Thursday and Lotor is the nicest guy again.

Adam only occasionally joins the regular’s table recently; he started working in the very bar they usually sit and talk. He often has to work right when everybody else sits down for a cool beverage in the evening, but the whole dynamic of the regular’s table seems to calm down. Nobody misses Shiro’s and Adam’s awful banter.

 

*

 

It’s a Friday night and Shiro asks him if they want to go to a concert together. Keith obviously says yes without hesitation and tries to think of anything date-related that could help him prepare. Out of desperation he calls Hunk, who provides him a few tips: He tells him which one is Keith’s chocolate side, what he could wear, and how to not lose his nerves. Hunk reminds him that he already slept, no, is currently sleeping with Shiro at least once a week, so there’s nothing to get nervous about.

Shiro looks overjoyed when they meet up and explains that his favorite band came down to their college town to play in a club and that he missed the ticket sale – luckily he still got two tickets.

“How did that happen?”

“Uh,” Shiro twirls a strand of his white hair between his fingers, “Adam wanted to give them to me as a present. He didn’t see a good reason for selling it, so he gave them to me.”

“So you’re not getting back together?” Keith asks faster than he can think. Shiro stares at him with a look that he can’t read.

“Obviously,” Shiro makes a pause and smiles, “no.” He extends his hand and brushes Keith’s hair out of his face.

“I can’t wait to listen to them,” Keith tells him, face red. Shiro bends down a bit to kiss him.

“Me neither. Thank you for coming, Keith.”

This feels like heaven. It is heaven.

 

After getting a beer each, they manage to push themselves to the front rows. The colorful floodlights gleam everywhere during the concert, and when they hit Shiro’s face, Keith can see how his eyes shine and how the corners of his mouth are curved upwards. He’s dancing and singing to all their songs (he seems a bit obsessed with them, not that Keith would mind) and all in all looks even more at peace then in the first weeks that Keith got know him.

 

While Shiro’s eyes are locked onto what’s happening in front, Keith observes _him_ , music in his ears and heart full. They go home together later both wearing a brand new bandshirt Shiro bought them both, and Keith can’t stop grinning when Shiro talks and talks about this favorite band of his. Keith doesn’t mind it at all, not when Shiro takes his hand and gives him kisses all on their way home.

In the night, when Shiro falls asleep in his bed, Keith stays over for the first time. He's wide awake, listening to his soft snoring and takes his phone back into his hands and types a message at Hunk.

 

 

 **Keith** <02:34> _Date went well_ 😊😊😊

 

 

After he puts his phone away, Keith thinks that he should try to not get his hopes up too much. But today seemed like a real date to him, it seemed like Shiro likes him for more than only getting into his bed and that, against all odds, this could be his first real relationship with someone he really likes.

He gives sleeping Shiro a kiss on his forehead and turns around, finally ready to close his eyes.

 

The next Thursday, Adam is neither there, nor is he working.

They are all sitting at their usual table with Acxa and Veronica joining them. Lance is there, too, trying hard to not look at them. He’s still wary of Acxa, even though he doesn’t have anything against her per se.

“Oh, you got a little something there—“ Veronica wipes some bread crums off her girlfriend’s face. Lotor watches them, corners of his mouth curved downwards. Keith doesn’t understand what his deal now is, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s just happy and satisfied, sitting with everyone together, and himself sitting at his new place right next to Shiro.

They talk generally about news first, anything that happened in the mean time since the last meeting, then finances, then about any events that they could hold at the end of the academic year.

“What’s with Adam?” Romelle asks out of the sudden. Nobody answers and Lotor’s face turns sour.

“I don’t know, my heart,” Allura tells her and brushes a strand of the blond hair out of Romelle’s face. Keith watches the easiness in which the two girlfriends act with each other. Some warmth blooms in his heart, despite the (apparently) serious topic.

Shiro takes a deep breath. “Adam told me he’d rather not come anymore.”

The air is thick and nobody says anything at first to that. Keith has his own thoughts, like probably most of them.

“I mean, I think,” Hunk voices them first, “I think there was a small part of him that didn’t really want to come anyways anymore. I think he wanted to focus more on work and school?”

“Something like that,” agrees Allura.

Acxa exchanges a look with Veronica. They don’t say a thing.

“I mean, he could have told us,” Pidge says, tone a bit reproachful.

Keith has been watching Lotor’s face; it’s getting redder slowly. His arms, folded in front of his body, show a clear message, too. Uh oh.

Shiro sighs. “I mean, I couldn’t change his mind—”

It’s the final straw – Lotor throws his hair back, opens his mouth.

“You maybe could have not fucked the only straight guy at our regular’s table while your ex is there, too.” He says right into Shiro’s face. “Right after you broke up a few months ago—”

Keith freezes in his seat and notices all the eyes wandering towards him. Hunk’s too.

“Hey, Lotor—“ Hunk warns.

“You also could maybe not have gone and taken the tickets that Adam bought for you and him and went with your fuckbuddy instead. What an atrocity! And now you think he’s unreasonable?”

“Wait, you did what?” Pidge asks Shiro and throws a glance at Keith.

“If I remember correctly, the last time you slept with him-“ Lotor raises his voice and a few people turn their heads, “you promised him there’s a chance for you two. And you are surprised you couldn’t change his mind about coming here after he heard about you two?”

Everyone at the bar including their own table is staring at Lotor like he’s an angry, agitated guy. His breath is quicker than before, his chest is raising and lowering rapidly. He then turns to Keith, says “And you ruined it, too!” and walks out.

“Shiro, I’m sor—” Keith starts, but Shiro shakes his head and gets up and gets his jacket, “It’s okay,” he tells him without a second glance and charges after Lotor.

 

Both of them leave a baffled table and a bar full of baffled people. Acxa slurps loudly on her milkshake. Keith wants to disappear in the ground.

“You fucked Shiro? I mean, I can _understand_ —”

“Lance, not now,” Keith tells between gritted teeth. “Should I go after them?” he asks Hunk.

His best friend at the table shrugs, gives him a empathic look.

“I don’t know man, I think it’s better off when the two of them talk. Seems like they have…some stuff they need to discuss.”

“Yeah, for example Lotor’s unreasonable anger at Shiro for breaking up with Adam,” Lance says. Pidge rolls their eyes at him and pinches their boyfriend softly.

 

“Was it unreasonable?” Acxa asks. “Sounds like Shiro truly fucked up. Nothing against you, Keith.”

“I think he has a little issue with anger, yeah,” comes quietly from Romelle.

“I think,” Veronica says as she squeezes her girlfriends hand, “that he’s in love with him.”

“Lotor with Adam?!” Lance almost shouts.

Everyone is a bit shocked. Especially Keith.

“I mean, at our regular’s table apparently anything can happen,” Pidge snorts with a glance at him.

 

He takes a deep breath and brushes his hand through his hair.

That’s enough.

 

Keith takes a steadying breath. It’s time to come out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lotor is a dick in this chapter, but different from the show, he will get a redemption in this fic lol  
> If you want to recommend this fic to others, feel free to link or retweet this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1151572982529220610)!
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> _________________________
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	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit, final chapter everyone!!! I'm extremely happy to have this baby finished & I loved all the positive and amazing reactions to it.
> 
> More than ever, I hope this final chapter is satisfying & I'd be really happy if I hear everyone's thought about it.
> 
> Since this and another multi-chap fic of mine are finished (the other one only needs illustrations before I upload it), I started writing a new one, so stay tuned, I guess?
> 
> Thanks @[leandralena ](https://twitter.com/leandralena)for beta-ing this chapter!!<3  
> Without further ado, here's the final chapter!

 

What happened last time:

 

_Everyone at the bar including their own table is staring at Lotor like he’s an angry, agitated guy. His breath is quicker than before, his chest is raising and lowering rapidly. He then turns to Keith, says “And you ruined it, too!” and walks out._

_“Shiro, I’m sor—” Keith starts, but Shiro shakes his head and gets up and gets his jacket, “It’s okay,” he tells him without a second glance and charges after Lotor._

 

_[....]_

 

_He takes a deep breath and brushes his hand through his hair._

_That’s enough._

_Keith takes a steadying breath. It’s time to come out._

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

**Chapter V**

 

 

 

Unsurprisingly, nobody is surprised when Keith tells them that he’s gay.

 

Hunk orders everyone another round of drinks. Lance is bullied into paying for it all, but for once he doesn’t complain.

Keith could have figured out by now that everyone knew he had been pining for Shiro since the first day he met him. Pidge laughs the whole time as he explains the situation; Hunk smiles at him and hugs him, tells him he’s a good friend. It means a lot to Keith that they are accepting him that much. The girls smile at him widely and pat his back. He… wasn’t nervous to tell them all – because what would they even say to him coming out? Everyone’s queer and although that’s not always a guarantee for being tolerant, Keith is lucky, because they are. Thinking back when he first told his parents, he almost passed out from feeling nervous (even though in hindsight he could have worried less). Coming out now to his friends was also considerably less weird than to his grandparents, too.

Keith thinks, as they all have changed the topic by now already, that this won’t be the last time he comes out, either. He’s not sure if he needs to tell Shiro (because them meeting up once a week to fuck should be a big enough hint for him), but he knows in the future he will have to with every new job, every new friend he makes. He hopes that there will come a time where he can just straight-out tell someone (or never tell the people who don’t need to know about it) and leave out the part where he awkwardly explains why he just never corrected a group of queer people when they assumed he was straight.

The hardest part was both confessing that what Lotor had said was true (as far as Keith knows). Shiro and him had been… _dating_.

He says _dating_ because he’s unsure if for Shiro this is only a hook-up when for Keith it means falling hard and weekly losing his mind over him. Keith tells them all that him and Shiro are ‘seeing each other’. He’s hoping that this stays as truthful as possible without him needing to fear that he has to correct himself later, because Shiro decided that he didn’t actually want to date him.

 

Everyone is chatty, but the conflict between Lotor and Shiro also took a toll on everybody. The evening ends with a soft group hug, with Romelle patting his back, like she’s in big sister mode. It’s all well, but Keith feels uneasy. Both Shiro and Lotor haven’t come back from when Lotor stormed off earlier and there’s still the thing with Adam… which he’d rather not think about.

So he thinks about the evening and its most amazing moments. He thinks how Lance only patted his own chest three times and said how he’s now special again for Pidge to finally be fed up with him and hit his shoulder to make him shut up. He thinks about Hunk telling Keith he’s so happy for him and it’s good to stay true to himself and his story about how those were the words Shiro told him when he talked to him about him considering telling Shay that he’s bisexual. Keith grins when he thinks about Allura says that she ‘kind of knew’ all along and almost tears up thinking how sweet they all are.

His friends called it an early evening soon. When everyone left, Keith stays seated with nothing but a glass of apple soda on his table and his phone which he checks on every few seconds.

There’s been no message from Shiro since he has left with Lotor.

Keith bites his upper lip and fumbles with his hair while lost in thought. Shiro is probably still _talking_ to Lotor, telling him… whatever he tells him. Keith believes Shiro when he told him that he and Adam are over. He believes (with some doubts about it) that Lotor likes Adam. It’s shocking since he never even noticed. Scandalous, he thinks.

When the bartenders announced the last round for the night, Keith pays and leaves. Shiro didn’t show up back in the bar and also didn’t message him. Keith feels a sting in his eyes but realizes that he must be busy talking to Lotor. It’s alright. He can deal with that, he thinks.

But on his way home, he wonders if Lotor pointing those things out made Shiro rethink the situation with Keith. Or if Shiro never was interested in him outside of the bed in the first place. Keith’s mind wanders even further, as he walks home in the darkness, starless sky above him.

It would have been a miracle if someone wanted to seriously date him anyway; especially when he has acted like a closet case since the beginning, he thinks.

That’s not the only issue. It’s also that Keith doesn’t want Adam to hate him. He doesn’t want anybody to hate him, honestly. Adam was nice to him most of the time (even if he wasn’t nice to Shiro).

Maybe, only maybe it’s all Keith’s fault for wanting to get closer to Shiro in the first place.

 

 

*

 

One week later Keith’s at the bar again, and he’s being stood up by Hunk for a very good reason.

 

 **Hunk [7:34pm]:** I’m sorry, forgot that Shay invited me today

 **Hunk [7:34pm]:** I’LL MAKE IT UP TO YOU

 

Hunk had explained that Shay had invited him to a dinner in a fancy restaurant Hunk always wanted to try and it was for today (which he totally forgot). It’s hard to get any reservations there, so they can’t simply postpone their date. Keith (weirdly) understands how important this is for Hunk and doesn’t make a big deal of it. Hunk is his best friend; he’s the most loyal person he ever met. If it’s Hunk, he can totally make a mistake like that, and Keith won’t be mad.

 

 **Keith [7:39pm]** : It’s fine. I hope you two have a good time.

 

Shiro messaged once to ask if Keith was alright and Keith didn’t answer. Calling him now to ask if he wants to hang out isn’t a liable option. They still haven’t talked about anything that happened that one night.

Keith briefly thinks about who else he could call; he’s not in the mood to hang out with Lance or Pidge and the girls are having the time of their life at the beach a few thousand miles from here, so he simply slides the phone back into his pocket and for a lack of other options he sits at the bar.

Normally he and Hunk would sit down and play cards, tucked away somewhere in the corner. Keith can’t just go home since he had ordered something to drink, convinced that Hunk would be there any minute until he had checked his messages.

“One Virgin Colada,” someone announces, and a big fruity drink is set down on the bar table right in front of him and Keith sighs and wants to thank the barkeeper, but when he looks up, it’s Adam right in front of him.

“Oh. Hey.” Adam seems as surprised as Keith is, but comes down from his initial shock a lot quicker.

“Hey Adam,” Keith greets and pulls his Virgin Colada closer. “I should have known you’d be here,” he says with a sigh. He looks at his drink, then up at Adam again. “Is it okay for me to sit here?”

The last time he heard anything about Adam was at the last regular’s table, when they all heard about how he didn’t want to come again since Keith and Shiro were a thing. So, that’s great.

“Sure,” Adam says with a small smile. He doesn’t look particularly angry at Keith. Not like he hates his existence or anything. Not like Lotor does.

Keith nods and smiles back and takes the straw of his drink into his mouth, slowly sips on it. He takes the cards out that he and Hunk usually use to play with and puts them on the counter, playing with the packaging and mentally outlining an essay he needs to turn in at the end of the month.

“Do you mind?” Adam suddenly asks, gets a bar stool and sits on the other side before Keith even answers. “It’s pretty empty tonight, but as long as there’s something to do, I don’t need to lock up early.” He nods at the cards and Keith laughs.

“Yeah,” he says softly and gets the cards out and starts shuffling them. Adam’s eyes are locked on Keith’s hands that are carefully moving the cards. Strong, long fingers, that finally hand out a few cards for each of them.

“What are we playing?” Adam asks and Keith shrugs.

“You choose.”

They stack up cards in silence, and Keith has to admit that Adam is a passable player at whatever game they start. It brings out the competitive side in Keith that he sometimes denies he has; especially when someone like Adam stays unaffected through it all. Keith wins most of the time.

The first time Adam wins, Keith finally opens his mouth, having brought up enough bravery through multiple rounds.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“For what?” Adam raises an eyebrow. “Losing?” he smiles.

Keith shakes his head.

“You and Shiro.” He pauses. “I didn’t know.”

And then, he does something unbelievable in Keith’s eyes. He just shrugs. “It’s okay. We’ve been broken up for a while now.”

“But you’re not coming to the regular’s table anymore because of us—”

“Yeah. It’s better for myself,” Adam says and doesn’t explain at first. He sees Keith’s waiting gaze and casts his eyes down as he continues. “I won’t be completely unaffected when I’ll see you two.”

“Ah—”

“It’s okay,” he says quickly with a forced smile. Keith knows that he wants it to be genuine. “What game are we playing next?”

 

In between, Adam prepares some drinks and serves the guests. There’s really not a lot to do, so he heats water and prepares himself a tea, before he sits back opposite Keith and puts his cards back up.

“Can I ask you something?” Keith says over the edge of his cards. Adam hums.

“Lotor,” he starts, unsure how to proceed, but then decides it’s easier to just ask his questions. “He said that Shiro told you there’s a chance for you two to get back together—”

Adam scoffs and puts his cards down.

“He did. And then I told Shiro, we’re better when we’re not together. That bit Lotor didn’t tell you, right? I explained those things to him, too, but he often gets it in his head that he has to defend my honor and things.”

Keith looks at him surprised.

Adam sighs. “The situation always has been a bit meddled up.”

 

They play a while in silence. And then Adam starts to explain.

How he and Shiro broke up because Shiro wanted to go abroad next year, but Adam didn’t want him to. How he can’t say why he didn’t want him to leave. How early on they had issues in their relationship, but how Adam wanted them to stay together and work it out. Then, Lotor had pushed the boundaries and asked Adam out when they were still together.

“Fuck,” Keith curses. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing,” Adam says. “I think he knew that I had started to develop feelings for him.”

Keith’s eyes widened; words stuck in his throat.

“He shouldn’t have actively tried to ruin mine and Takashi’s relationship, though,” Adam adds nonchalantly, almost amused.

“You’d think that someone like Lotor has everything in life already,” Keith mumbles. Lotor is rich, he has many friends. Why does he need someone else’s relationship?

“What do you mean?” Adam asks and takes a sip of his tea. It’s mint.

“He’s careless. Carefree. And a dick.”

Adam looks at him weirdly, raises an eyebrow.

“He’s black and trans, Keith. I don’t think he’s carefree at all.”

Unlike Keith, Lotor grew up rich. It’s hard for Keith to wrap his mind around the fact that he wouldn’t automatically have everything. He can only imagine how easily Lotor got accepted into everyone’s group of friends, how everyone likes him. He is nice; just not toward Keith. Keith, who always had to struggle finding friends, who was always seen as the dirty kid from next door until one day, his mom came back home and things got right again.

He doesn’t want to agree to it, but he knows that Adam is right. Who knows how Lotor’s life looked like?

“It doesn’t excuse his behavior,” he relents, stubborn.

“No, it doesn’t… but if you met his father, you would understand how Lotor’s wealth came with a price. But yeah, I agree. It sure doesn’t excuse his actions toward you,” Adam agrees.

“I told him he should stop. He got angry at me.” He adds and grins a little bit.

Keith observes his face, looks at the smile, the small wrinkles around Adam’s eyes.

“You like him,” he states. It’s so obvious. It was hard to believe, but now he’s more than sure of it. Adam doesn’t nod, doesn’t verbally agree. He just looks down at his mug.

“Shiro and I wanted to marry.” The words make Keith’s stomach sink. “He was everything to me. It was hard to get over that; I was _so_ angry.”

The mutual teasing and riling up. It makes sense. Shiro wasn’t any better.

“Shiro told me there’s a chance for us because he was still in love with me,” Adam confesses. “But I didn’t want it. I wasn’t in love with him anymore.”

Keith swallows. He almost wants to grab Adam by his collar and shake him, cry ‘Why don’t you date Lotor then, you fool?’. He doesn’t.

“I know, I’m weird.”

Keith doesn’t nod, even though it’s a close one. Yeah. Adam is weird, but so are feelings in general. So are humans. Keith can understand.

“So you’re not mad about the concert tickets? Or that…” he can’t say it out loud.

“I’m not,” Adam says and nods at a customer who waved at him, a sign that she wants to order something new. “It makes me think about trying to date again, too.”

 

 

As he’s trying to figure out what to do with himself now, he thinks about Shiro again.

Keith hasn’t messaged Shiro back, because he had no words to say what he felt this week. Instead of telling him now, after his talk with Adam, he skips texting altogether and just shows up at Shiro’s flat after telling Adam goodbye.

 

“Uh, oh. Shiro isn’t here. But I mean you can come in and wait.” Matt says as he opens the door and lets him in. “I guess I heard you two bone in the room next to me often enough to trust that you didn’t come here tonight to destroy shit. It’s kind of like you’re my friend too, you know.”

Keith makes a mental note that Matt is fucking weird, when you talk more than hello, goodbye and three sentences in between with him.

“What if I still wanted to burn his room down?” he asks him and follows him into the kitchen where they both sit down at the table. Matt fills two glasses of water for them and empties one.

“I don’t know,” Matt shrugs. “I guess there’s a reason why Shiro deserves it.”

 

After half an hour of chatting about Keith’s possible or impossible evil plans, Matt goes back to his own room to play games. Keith goes to Shiro’s room and lies down on the bed. He didn’t mean to fall asleep, but slumber quickly overcame him. He dozes softly until a dip in the mattress wakes him.

Shiro comes into view when Keith cautiously opens one eye to see who disturbed him.

“Hey,” he greets softly and gives Keith a long kiss. Keith sees stars.

“Hey,” he greets back breathless.

Shiro smiles down at him, and Keith feels like he’s in heaven.

“Go back to sleep,” he grins, and Keith shakes his head. “No?” Shiro asks and Keith smiles while he continues to shake his head. Shiro’s voice sounded so smitten.

Keith grins and cuddles into him. He loves the warmth, the ridiculously huge build right next to him. He never wants to let go of him. He’s in too deep and just wishes that somewhere along the ride, Shiro will even feel a small part of that for him too. Shiro tilts Keith’s chin up with his hands and gives him a mind-blowing, soft kiss. Keith melts into the touch of his lips, closes his eyes to guard them from the dazzling light that Shiro is. It feels too good to make his heart ache now from the uncertainty of their feelings. Hidden away by the darkness of the room, walls and bed dipped in greyish dark-blue colors, there’s only the two of them. Cuddling under the soft bedsheets that smell like chamomile and fresh grass.

“Did you talk with Lotor?” Keith blinks at him in the darkness and Shiro blinks back.

“Yeah.” His voice is barely a whisper. He brushes some of Keith’s hair behind his ear and smiles. As it grows apparent to him that Keith still waits for an answer, Shiro casts his eyes away. “Don’t sweat it,” he tells him. “He will figure things out.”

 

Over the summer break Keith has some assignments to do, it’s not too much. He pushes himself on most days and even though he has to relearn the information for Slav’s test, it’s still a manageable workload. Shiro on the other hand has to learn for a few tests, being three semesters above him.

When Keith comes over to Shiro’s flat to _study_ or because he invited him over, he’s almost always too early which means Matt has the honor of opening the door and letting him in. It becomes a ritual of coming into their shared flat, sit down in the kitchen to talk to Matt. Sometimes, he’s overexcited over something new he worked on, sometimes just tired, and sometimes Matt being so shitfaced that he almost gets no words out.

 

More often than not, Shiro comes back home and finds them talking and playing video games in Matt’s room. “How did he lure you into his room?” Shiro asks him every time. “Or better, how did you even get to the center of it?” he asks, smoothly pointing out how messy Matt’s room is.

“With games and not being a busy body,” Keith replies and throws his arms around him. “But I missed your room. All tidy and nice.”

“You like that, huh,” Shiro puts his hands on his hips and draws him closer. “That’s good to know.”

Shiro kisses him sweetly, like Keith is worth everything. They still have not addressed the elephant in the room. Are they dating, or are they not?

 

“So, I think you two are dating,” Matt says one day as they play smash bros on the n64. “You just haven’t told anyone. You don’t call each other boyfriends, but it still sounds like dating to me.”

“Matt,” Keith says slowly, his tongue heavy in his mouth. “I’m too hammered to understand if you’re mocking me or if you’re being serious.”

“I’m being serious!” It’s not exactly yelling, but close. Matt forgets to push his buttons; Keith wins as a result.

“You’re not,” Keith groans and puts the controller down. “You’re just a gigantic douche— “

“Oh damn,” Matt interrupts him and lies on the ground. “Did you know my carpet is really soft?”

“I didn’t know you own a carpet.” It’s not a lie, Matt has so much shit lying around, it’s barely visible.

“Maybe you need to talk.” It’s the first good advice Matt gives. Keith grunts.

 

For the next few hours they trail off and order pizza, lie on the ground and feel Matt’s carpet; until Shiro comes home to the battlefield and helps Keith to bed.

 

 

Shiro works overhours on a small job in their department. One day he takes Keith to the astronomy tower simply because he has the key to it. They sit there, and watch stars the whole night and yet Keith gets more lost in his eyes. Shiro even thought of bringing warm cocoa in a flask, and Keith could die a thousand deaths for him happily.

When Shiro makes a joke about flying to the moon together, Keith is so close to telling him that he loves him.

The stars sparkle on, a strong breeze ruffles through his hair, the sound of the wind rushing in his ears. The cold crawls up his thighs very suddenly, and Keith shivers. The moment is gone—

But then Shiro shuffles closer and pulls him into his arms. He kisses the side of his neck and talks about the moon and the planets, the mars and the rovers, the asteroids and shooting stars. And Keith feels warm again.

 

Shiro tells Keith about the interviews he has during the summer break, and Keith genuinely worries about the workload Shiro takes on. He doesn’t ask further when Shiro tells him that he might not even get in, but he has to simply try. The determination that shows on his face when he talks about his passion is what makes Keith fall deeper. Whatever Shiro does, whatever he says, Keith hangs on to him with eyes full of adoration.

Even the regular’s table is on a summer break for a while, but Keith still meets with Hunk for lunch and even goes for a small hike with him and Shay. He likes her a lot, because she lets Keith be and is just the funniest and nicest person Keith has ever met (aside from Shiro). They are together in a tent for three days, and Keith doesn’t think there’d be another couple he could do that with. He shudders at the thought of ever hanging out with Lance and Pidge alone, they can be a handful.

 

 

“I missed you,” Shiro says even though it has only been three days, when he picks Keith up from the train station and pulls him into a hug. Keith loves getting squeezed by his big muscles. His laugh is jittery as he gives Shiro a tentative kiss on his cheek. “Me too,” he tells him. His breath hitching just a little bit, excited over the possibility of Shiro kissing him on his lips, here in front of all the strangers on the platform, in front of Hunk and Shay. He does, even though it’s a small peck. They go for lunch together, and Shay tells Shiro excitedly about the animals they saw in the wild and the beautiful rock formation. Shiro asks if Keith fought with a bear under a waterfall. Hunk says yes.

It feels good like this, and after they head back and Shiro drops Keith at his flat, he suggests they can do more things like that.

 

“We also haven’t partied in a while,” Shiro says a few days later when they hang out in his room. At his desk sits Keith who’s hammering an essay into his computer. He momentarily stops as Shiro pulls up a website on his phone. “There’s a party?”

“Not really. But there’s free booze.”

“You wanna get hammered with me?” Keith grins widely and Shiro laughs.

“You say like that’s something romantic. Yeah, I wanna get hammered with you, Keith.”

The situation is silly, but it makes Keith’s heart beat faster. “Me too, Shiro,” he says and gets up from the chair, essay completely forgotten.  He frames Shiro’s head with his hands, touches his cheek with his thumb and kisses him until they both lie on his bed.

 

It’s orientation week and the free booze happens to be in one of the booths from the economics department. Keith ended up going with Matt because there was another interview that came up for Shiro. Shiro promised it’s only till noon and he’ll meet them later, which was an only a tiny consolation for him. Getting hammered with Matt for free, before classes started the following weeks still sounded tempting, so here he is, standing next to Matt and looking at the stall from afar.

“They just… dress all the same,” Matt states, all strength having left his voice. “How did they all find the same exact scarf? I can barely find the same pair of jeans twice at one store—”

“They will know that we’re not economics majors,” Keith says. Shit. The booze was only free as long as they believed Keith and Matt were actual freshmen, in their department. With Keith’s worn-out jeans and Matt’s sweatshirt with more holes than a swiss cheese, they are anything but convincing.

“If we put some spit in our hair it might count as gel?” Matt offers. Keith thinks that option sounds rather…yucky.

“Okay. You know what? Act. Adapt. Survive,” he rolls his sleeves up. “We gonna get that free booze—”

“Hellooo, friends!” An obnoxious voice yells over the chatter of more than a dozen business major freshmen. Amongst them all is only one person standing out: extravagantly dressed, long blond hair thrown back over his shoulder, nose higher than his head. “Come drink with me,” he offers. He looks objectively gorgeous, and nothing like all the freshmen clones. He has his arms wide open towards Keith and Matt. They both exchange a gaze. Matt shrugs.

“Hey Lotor!” Matt greets him. “Old friend.”

From what Keith knows, Matt knows Lotor mostly because they get their weed from the same dealer. Keith wonders how you get acquainted over _that_. They sit down in front of his stall and get a few shots filled up by Lotor.

“Didn’t take you for the gracious guy, my dude,” Matt says and downs the first shot. What madness, Keith thinks and briefly looks down at his watch. It’s barely 1pm.

“I mean if someone possessed the wealth and power I have lying at my feet, wouldn’t they do the same? Donate it all for the good cause?”

Matt nods along. Keith squints.

“It was for freshmen orientation,” Keith states, eyes locked on Lotor. The taller man’s smile froze.

“And?”

“What good cau—” Keith starts, but Matt shoved his hand over his mouth, muffling whatever he says next.

“I think what Keith meant is that we need more of that free liquor that you, Lotor the kind soul of your caliber, gives to us today.”

“Sure,” Lotor smiles with a disdained look at Keith, turns to grab the bottle and sits down around the small table with them. “Drink up, boys!”

He filled them another shot with a blueish liquor and before Keith gets to eye it suspiciously, Lotor and Matt already took it, so Keith hurries to empty it, too. He can’t believe the day where he says the following would ever come, but it has come: “Hey, do you also have beer?”

“Sure,” Lotor smiles. “The peasant-drink. Zethrid!” he calls over to a group of women. “Bring my friend here a beer, please!”

Zethrid looks unamused. Keith didn’t know she was a business major, too.

“Go get it yourself, Lotor!” she yells back. Lotor scoffs.

“I’m getting it, wait up my friends.” Matt crawls over two other tables and reaches behind them, bringing two six-packs to the table. “Cheerio,” he says and opens one for Keith and himself.

“You don’t like beer, Lotor?” he asks him, holds a can towards him in a friendly offer. Lotor eyes it hesitantly. “It tastes like piss,” he says and looks Matt straight in the eye. He shrugs in return.

Keith’s has none of it; there’s a lot of built-up anger about Lotor that has to go somewhere. Usually, he isn’t like that. He’s never cared when Lance teased him. But Lotor… is another case. “Oh, the drink is too peasant for you?” Keith’s voice sounds almost neutral with just a tad of sassy, as he brings the can to his mouth.

 _Don’t think of piss, don’t think of piss_ , he chants in his head as he takes a big swig and swallows it. It tastes disgusting, but he upholds the image of him actually liking it, throws a fierce look at Lotor.

Matt laughs in the background.

“You see,” Lotor says and takes the can that Matt had offered earlier, “occasionally one has to let themselves down to the peasant ways to truly enjoy life.” He takes a sip, a much smaller one, too. “Delicious,” he states and puts a cloth handkerchief against his mouth, unable to shield the loud gulping sound away. “Really, really exquisite in tasting, this rotten wheat juice.”

Maybe he has gone fully mad, but Keith stares at Lotor, taking another sip, raising an eyebrow at him. Lotor in turn takes the gesture like he’d take the leather glove of a duelist.

“Tastes fucking good,” Keith says and hopes Shiro will never, ever hear about this. He raises the can back against his lips and drinks it in one go. When he sets it down, a loud burp escapes his mouth and he wipes over his mouth with the back of his hand. “What about you, Lotor? Too much already?”

Lotor’s eyes positively glint. The fake smile got lost on his face somewhere between Keith’s words, the drinking and the burp; now there’s only a thin pressed line of lips there.

“Only the peasant would think that there’s something like ‘enough’.” And the Lotor sets his can of beer against his lips, all while watching Keith.

Matt eyed them both before saying “I don’t know what’s fucking happening here right now, but I also just saw an old classmate so I’m going to leave and stand over there. Okay, Keith?”

Keith doesn’t hear it. He grabs for the next can and opens it with a loud sizzling sound.

The staring, drinking and hissing continues and Keith has no idea where Matt is. He also has no idea what time it is or who the guys next to him and Lotor are. He barely recognizes how ugly it has become. Or how it went from glaring and shit-talking to a straight drinking contest within a few minutes.

Somebody, Keith doesn’t know them, keeps bringing them cans of beer. All the gas makes him burp and his stomach hurt but drinking Lotor under the table is a goal that irrationally feels like the one important thing he wants right now. Fucking Lotor.

He doesn’t know why Lotor upholds this silly pissing contest, but he also doesn’t care about his reasons. Maybe Lotor loves to sit here with him, sneering and jibbing words at him.

 

“Hey Keith,” Matt comes around when he finally lost count of how many cans he drank, “I just met this couple and they wanna go back to my flat and have a threesome. Are you going to be okay on your own?” He eyes Lotor nervously.

“Sure,” Keith says. He’s happy he got that out without vomiting.

“Nice. I gonna text Shiro where you are. Just one thing, you know how my room looks, so I will take them to Shiro’s room. Maybe don’t turn up there before, let’s say, nine? Okay, good, love you, bye—” he quickly says, giving Keith an unusual but friendly peck on his head and runs, really. _Runs_.

Keith looks after him, then slowly turns his head back to Lotor.

“You’re still drinking?” he asks him. It’s unnecessary. Lotor looks shitfaced beyond words.

“Yes,” he slurs. “How are you holding up, peasant boy?”

“Good,” Keith says. If they don’t stop soon, he’ll really need to throw up.

They kept drinking in silence, ignored by everyone else, sitting around the small table.

“I really don’t know what your problem is,” Keith finally murmurs, “but you’re such a massive dickhead.”

“I just hate you,” Lotor returns, unable to uphold his posh accent through all the slurring and anger. “You’re just easy to tease. I hate that in people—”

“God, please fucking stop you two!” Ezor shouts. Keith’s ears ring.

An hour later, all the freshmen are gone, and the business upperclassmen slowly tidy up the mess around them.

Keith asks Lotor if he wants another beer. It finally started to taste good.  Lotor of all people, tears up at the question. Or maybe it was just the slow music with the sad lyrics that played in the background. No matter the reason, Keith instantly feels bad for him. The words Adam told him earlier that week still ring in his ear – Lotor just doesn’t have it that easy in life.

“Hey,” Keith says, voice soft. A loud burp follows, but he coughs and shuffles closer. Keith, objectively, is very bad at comforting people. He knows one person that excels at it, which is Shiro. His voice and eyes usually get softer and he leans into people, offers a small hug with his arm. He’s not too fond of hugging with his prosthesis, and Keith only noticed after a while. It makes Keith tear up at night because he always wants Shiro to know that he’s perfect as is, and that he loves to hug any part of his body.

So, he mirrors what he knows from Shiro; leans in, gets closer, one hand on Lotor’s shoulder. With a light squeeze and a looking into Lotor’s eyes, he asks: “What’s wrong?”

Lotor looks at him with horror – maybe because he’s not used to that kind of affection; or rather, because Keith literally never acts like that.

“What the hell, peasant boy.”

“Hey hey hey,” Keith slurs. “Let’s not get ugly.”

Lotor meets him with a confused gaze and coughs. “I wish I had as much luck as you do, peasant boy,” he mutters. “Getting close to the one I adore without effort.”

“I was just there, and we fucked,” Keith says a tad too loud. “I don’t think there was much luck involved.”

He gets a stinky eye in return. “Sounds like luck, you dingus.”

Keith almost dropped the can of beer and saves it like it’s his lifeline. “What did you call me?”

“It’s a word I learned on the street, you illiterate imbecile. You dingus.”

At this point, Keith doesn’t even feel offended anymore. Lotor’s insults just blend into background noise.

“You’re just mean,” he says and swallows the last of his beer, “because you just don’t know how to flirt with Adam.”

Under Lotor’s suddenly watchful gaze, Keith crumbles away. Then Lotor’s eyes flicker to the side and he dares to breathe again.

“I don’t know why the fuck you don’t get your head out of your ass already. I bet he would say yes to a date.”

Lotor has money and looks. Keith has nothing.

“It’s not like you’d understand,” Lotor snarls and throws an empty can against the booth. Ezor shoots him an angry gaze.

“I understand!” Keith’s growl isn’t impressive, but Lotor still leans back. “Shiro is the hottest guy on Earth! I don’t know why he’s hanging out with me in the first place. I’m probably his bitch,” he whines.

“His what—”

“His slut, Lotor. I think I’m his slut.”

“Oh dear.”

Keith is crying now, too. Someone changed the song to Creep from Radiohead; and that’s the last straw. It’s exactly how Keith feels compared to Shiro.  Big and shiningly beautiful Shiro, who’s always so bright and intelligent. Like a diamond. Shining. And beautiful. He thought that already, right?

It doesn’t matter—

Keith is unashamedly in love with him, with his big muscles, and fuck, his big cock and nice ass and also—

His train of thought gets interrupted when he feels Lotor’s hand slap his cheek.

“Will you please stop,” he says calmly, then looking around himself. “Admiration yes, but we don’t need to know every dirty little detail of your sexlife—

“You slapped me,” Keith murmurs in shock. It didn’t hurt, honestly. He’s still scandalized.

“Well,” Lotor says and throws his long hair back, “you deserved it.”

“As if you’re mind doesn’t go there with Adam, too.” When he thinks back, about the parties, about the times when they all met in their usual bar, he remembers the subtle gazes Lotor throws Adam and how he laughs about his jokes even if they weren’t jokes. How Lotor tries to get his attention, again and again, and how happy he looks when he does. Keith almost blocks out all the bullying he faced from Lotor over it. Almost.

“It doesn’t,” Lotor says, obviously in denial. He watches as Keith fumbles out his phone, types a few buttons and smiles. He sees Adam’s ID on the screen. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he screeches and tries to grasp for the phone.

“We’re facing your fears now. It’s time—”

“Oh shit,” Zethrid mutters in amusement, “it’s getting out of hand.”

“Don’t you dare—”

But Adam already picked up.

“Keith?” he asks, surprised.

“Hey yeah. Heeeey. Adam! Ah, right.”

The voice at the other side stays quiet.

“Adam?”

“Yeah, Keith?”

“Ah, good. Good, good. You’re still there.”

“Put the fucking phone away.”

Keith pushes the phone further into Lotor’s face, but he hisses with his eyebrows furrowed, and teeth bared.

“Ah, right, right,” Keith says and takes the phone back. “Adam?” he asks again, and Adam confirms _again._ “Lotor wants to talk to you.”

He throws his phone at Lotor and hopes for him to catch it. He doesn’t, but scrambles to the ground to pick it up.

“Adam, yes. Yeah, it’s me.”

 

Lotor’s face changes from pure horror to a red tomato face and Keith happily decides it’s all thanks to himself. Whatever Lotor wants to discuss with Adam now, is none of his concern. He turns away and opens another beer when suddenly a big figure appears in front of him.

“Oh my god,” Keith groans as he recognizes the person through his blurred vision. “Not you.”

The gentle figure laughs and crouches down in front of Keith. “Ouch, Keith. That hurts.”

“It’s not—” Keith trails off, trying hard to stay on his chair and not fall off, “I’m happy to see you,” he explains. “Just not ready for it.”

Shiro laughs again – Keith likes the sound; it’s so sweet in his ears, so bad for his heart.

“I might die,” Keith winces, and now Shiro’s looking at him in concern.

“What’s wrong?” Shiro says and moves closer. It’s too much, his scent, his wonderful scent, his muscles, his body. How does Keith deserve him at all?  How does he deserve being close to him?

“I’m just,” he takes a steadying breath, “just so in love with you.”

He struggles to stay on his seat, rocking back and forth. Luckily, he doesn’t have to stay through Shiro’s reaction, because before anything happens, he bends over and vomits right onto his shoes and passes out.

 

 

*

 

Keith wakes up to three missed phone calls and a head that hurts so bad he wants to die. From his meager memories of yesterday, he’s surprised that he got his phone back.

He scrolls through the missed calls to find out that all of them are from Hunk, and instantly panics. With a short look at their last chat he finds a number of texts he sent him, that are all unrecognizable and make no sense. Hunk always answered in honest concern, until he apparently decided to call.

Keith also finds a text Shiro sent Hunk, it’s neatly written and without typos.

 **Shiro [8:23pm]:** Hey Hunk, it’s Shiro. Keith drank a bit too much, but I’m keeping an eye on him, don’t worry.

 

Keith sighs, and flops down on the bed again. They are at his flat. He focuses in on the noise of the shower and waits for Shiro to be finished and come back.

“How do you feel?” Shiro asks him with feeling.  He rubs his hair dry with a one of the towels and sits next to him on the bed.

“Sorry for vomiting on you,” Keith says before he says anything else. “I feel like shit. How’d you get my phone back?”

“I had to rip it from Lotor’s hands. He only stopped yelling at me when I suggested that he calls Adam again on his own phone.”

Keith gulps. Oh shit. He completely forgot.

“Ah,” he says, awkwardly, “So you—”

“Yeah, I knew.” Shiro says. His face looks neutral. Keith doesn’t answer, and Shiro breaks into a smile.

“I don’t mind. Really.” he explains. “As I said, me and Adam that’s over.”

“Yeah,” Keith breathes. He slowly rolls out of bed, stretches and holds his head for a moment before slowly shuffling to the bathroom. Their conversation is briefly interrupted by him brushing his teeth. When he comes back, Shiro is lying on the bed watching him.

He hopes Shiro never asks him about the cursed last words that ended the evening. Keith isn’t ready to face the disappointment of Shiro telling him that he doesn’t feel the same.

“About what you said yesterday,” Shiro starts.

Apparently, no such luck.

“Did you mean it?” His face is open and curious; Keith feels hot under his gaze.

“Do you want me to mean it?” Keith asks, evading a direct answer.

It makes Shiro smile and pull him closer, resting between his legs. Keith follows reluctantly, intertwining their hands.

“Yeah,” Shiro says. “I really want that.”

Keith exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He closes his eyes and wishes his head didn’t hurt so much. He feels relief flooding over him, swallowing him whole. Shiro wants him to like him. He can die happily of his hungover, now.

But then Shiro starts: “It’s just—” He bites down on his lip. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to want that.”

His stomach drops and he takes a step back.

“Wait,” Shiro says softly and pulls him back. Keith lets him.

“There’s this thing,” he starts. “You know Adam and I broke up because I wanted to leave, but he didn’t want me to.”

Keith nods slowly, feeling numb from head to toe. He…hopes this is not a break-up, before they even got a chance to be together.

“We weren’t working out either way.” He fumbles a little with Keith’s fingers as he speaks. “But the thing is, I still want to go abroad; I’ve been working so hard for it, doing interviews and stuff.”

“So you lied,” Keith says numbly. Maybe he’s being harsh. Shiro didn’t lie, he just didn’t tell the whole truth. It still feels like a slap in the face. Keith slowly untangles his fingers from Shiro’s.

“Keith,” he says quickly. “I didn’t want to hide it from you. I wanted to tell you when it was over. When I didn’t get the scholarship, because the chance to get it is just so so small—”

“But you got it.” He knows it. He just knows it, because Shiro is brilliant. Because, of course, Shiro would get the scholarship everyone dreamt of. He’s bright and he’s hard-working. Of course, he would get it.

“They told me right after the interview yesterday.”

Keith steps away, turns. His head is hurting too bad for this.

“Would you please leave?” he asks Shiro, struggling against the tears forming in the corners of his eyes. When Shiro doesn’t budge, he repeats: “Please.”

“Keith, I’m thinking about not taking it.”

Keith inhales sharply. It’s not what he’d want for Shiro, but he made the decision already.

“No,” Keith says, opens his mouth and closes it again. Shiro cocks his head and casts his eyes down.

“Keith, I’m in love you,” he says. “I really like you.”

“I’m, uh. Thanks—” His mind is a mess, but… “You can’t give that up!”

“Yeah. I’m not sure if I can either. But if I take it, I’ll be in Europe for one year, if everything goes well, even for two years.”

“I can do long distance,” Keith says quickly, and it makes Shiro smile.

“Yeah?” he asks him, full of hope.

“I’m also gay, sorry for not telling you earlier—” Keith is spluttering now, holding onto Shiro, saying whatever comes to his mind.

Shiro snorts loudly and wipes a small tear from laughing away. “Oh. _Good_ , I guess.”

Keith hugs Shiro around the middle, still barely realizing that Shiro just told him he liked him back. He hides his face in his chest, squeezing him tight. Shiro squeezes back.

“What do we do?” Shiro mumbles into his silky black hair and places a kiss there, rocking them from side to side. Keith could always stay like this and not think about anything else. But he has to figure it out. They can do two year apart, but it would be such a shame.

 

 

***

 

“It’s crazy,” Hunk says. They are already three months into the next semester but packing Keith’s things into boxes. The new subtenant will arrive on Friday, which means Keith has one last time at the regular’s table and three days before he needs to be out of his flat.

“You’re flying to fucking Europe,” Hunk adds and shakes his head as he neatly places a few books in one of the boxes. Keith grins widely.

“Yeah. Thanks to this big guy.” He gives Shiro a kiss, distracting him from going through his stuff and pulling out some photographs.

“What are you doing, Mister? This doesn’t look like packing.”

“I did pack. Your calculator is in box number 3 now,” Shiro relents, looking sheepish.

“You didn’t pack shit.” He grins at Shiro, raises his hands, making it look like he threatens to tickle him. “Stop looking at my baby pics.”

“Wait, what?” Hunk splutters, puts the books on the desk and walks over.

The three of them look at Keith’s baby pictures. He really hates them, because in every last of them he’s wearing a romper with a weird, hostile pattern. Also, he’s drooling. Shiro coos at every pic, saying how cute he looks, bringing heat to Keith’s cheeks. He’s only a bit embarrassed.

 

On Thursday they go to the regular’s table one last time. Lotor comes too, accompanied by Adam, who for the first time in a long while, decided to join them.

Unmistakably, Keith sees them holding hands as they enter and only part before they sit down. It makes him smile to himself. Sometimes he still has issues with Lotor; but after they went out to drink a second time together, the situation seems to have improved. He’s trying to not let Lotor under his skin as easily as before (he still hates the nickname ‘peasant boy’, but he can handle it) and even though Lotor hasn’t done anything to help their relationship develop, it’s fine.

 

“I’m changing my major to philosophy next semester,” Lotor declares. “Just to piss of father.”

It earns him a round of whoops and cheers from everyone, and an eyeroll from Adam. Allura declares that as soon as Shiro is gone, she’ll be their leader and everyone congratulates her. Romelle kisses her on the mouth daringly, after shouting “that’s my girl!”

Shiro and Keith exchange a soft glance and smile, Shiro leans closer to hug Keith and put his head onto Keith’s shoulder. It’s the last night for them in their little university town before they drive to Keith’s parents for a week stay. Then off to the next bigger city to take the flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

“Did I tell you how I cleared my flat?” Shiro asks him while everyone is chatting excitedly.

“Nah,” Keith answers and gives him a peck on his cheek. He feels Adam’s observant gaze on them, but when he turns his head, the brown-haired man smiles at him. Keith’s happy he found peace.

“Lotor offered his help and gave every guy he met outside a twenty to help pack the boxes.”

“No,” Keith aspirates. “He really did?”

“He did,” Shiro laughs. “I think someone stole a pair of underwear.”

“Who could blame them?” Keith laughs.

 

They say their goodbyes with loud laughter and tears (Hunk makes them promise to call once a week) before they go back to Shiro’s flat for the last night. As they walk through the emptying streets at night, hands clasped tightly, they laugh and kiss from time to time.

“Lotor told me how he finally convinced Adam,” Shiro grins. “It only took two months of sending roses to his house, before Adam called him and told him that he could have just asked for a date like a normal person, because he would have said yes the second Lotor actually asked him out formally.”

“Damn, Adam,” Keith laughs. “He still doesn’t know that Lotor is the least normal person from our group. He once wiped his forehead with a twenty dollar note, Shiro. He’s like out of the fucking movies.”

“So you decided to like him?” Shiro grins down at him and pulls him close. They are standing next to a streetlamp, the dim light falling onto their faces. It reflects on Shiro’s hair, makes it sparkle like a thousand stars. Keith is so, so in love.

“Not really,” he lies and grins. “He’s an alright guy. Today he didn’t call me peasant boy once.”

Shiro smiles back in empathy. “Oh babe, I’m sorry that nickname stuck to you.”

“I mean, you’ll see how much of that is true tomorrow night, so—”

Shiro swirls him around, not letting him finish, hikes him up and kisses him.

“I can’t believe you’re going with me,” Shiro tells him, slowly letting him slip down along his body.

“Me neither. I hope everything works out, with the exchange program and everything. And finding a job, that’s gonna be the worst.”

“Nope, the worst will be retaking Slav’s exam a third time when you come back.”

“Fuck,” Keith curses, but it’s without heat. “Don’t remind me! I’m not going to think about it! Europe, we’re coming. That’s all I’m concerned with now.”

Shiro looks at him, like he’s all there is; in this night, on this street, in this universe. Keith can’t wait to live through every adventure with him.

“You know,” he says and gives Shiro a kiss, “going to a new country is so fucking scary. A new continent even! It’s so scary, Shiro.”

His boyfriend nods.

“What will it be like? I’ve never been outside this state. I know nothing. Will they have gay clubs and queer regular’s table like ours? It’s so dumb, but I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

Shiro smiles at him, shrugging for an answer.

“I only know one thing,” Keith grins as he continues. “No matter who I meet now, if you’re by my side, they won’t think a second that I’m straight. No repetition of that situation.”

Shiro laughs softly and lets him down to his own feet gently.

“Yeah,” he grins. “That’s something.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone enjoying this fic, loosely based on my own awkward experiences <3  
> If you want to recommend this fic to others, feel free to link or retweet this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1151572982529220610)!
> 
> _________________________
> 
> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> This author replies to comments.  
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason (sometimes I feel shy when I’m reading and not up to starting a conversation, for example), feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to recommend this fic to others, feel free to link or retweet this [Tweet](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1151572982529220610)!
> 
> _________________________
> 
> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> This author replies to comments.  
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason (sometimes I feel shy when I’m reading and not up to starting a conversation, for example), feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!  
> 


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